The hazy CCTV footage didn’t capture anything of use to the owners of Lane Transport, a trucking company in Killarney, western Victoria.
Just the headlights of a car entering the truck yard at 3.06am, illuminating a row of parked B-doubles.
The mystery driver had been in and out of the yard in 10 minutes, enough time to siphon off more than 100 litres of diesel from one of Lane’s trucks. Police are investigating.
Noel Lane has run his transport company for decades and says this is the first case of fuel theft he has experienced.
“Disappointed. We are in a small rural area where things like that don’t happen,” Lane said. “There’s probably going to be more of it.”
The price of diesel was about $3 a litre in Melbourne by Tuesday, while unleaded petrol was rising towards $2.50.
Instances of fuel theft are also rising by between 8 and 30 per cent, the national industry body for fuel distributors says, although Victoria Police said it has not observed a spike in service station drive-offs.
The number of service stations running out of fuel is also rising as demand surges. By Tuesday, 162 service stations across Victoria had run out of at least one type of fuel, compared with 289 in NSW, Australia’s Energy Minister Chris Bowen said.
Service stations typically replenish their tanks every 24 to 48 hours, so one missed delivery can cause a station to run dry for a day or two, said Rowan Lee, the chief executive of the Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association.
He said affected stations were generally running out of one type of fuel, not all.
“Essentially, what we’ve seen is a doubling of demand for fuel, which puts some pressure on supply chains,” Lee said.
“Initially, we had some panic buying, and we also had what you would probably call forward buying for some industrial and agricultural uses … Whether that’s their concern that the price will keep rising and they want to get in and buy it at a certain price or whether they’re worried about supplies, I don’t know.”
Lee said panic buying had “eased off” in recent days, and the association saw no case for fuel rationing.
“The ships are still coming in, though the market is tight, no doubt,” he said.
More concerningly, retailers had reported a rise in drive-offs at the bowser of between 8 and 30 per cent, Lee said.
Police said they were closely engaged with petrol industry stakeholders and encouraged retailers to promptly report petrol theft, so officers could begin investigating.
“At this stage, there are no notable trends of escalating petrol theft following recent price increases,” a police spokesperson said. “However, police will continue to monitor this situation.
“There is a possibility of this leading to an increase in petrol drive-offs. However, the most common culprits are traditionally people committing other crimes such as driving stolen cars or displaying false plates.”
Instances of theft have also been reported in other states. In South Australia, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens reportedly put the onus on service stations to improve their security by installing prepaid pumps.
“We have seen reports of this type of crime for years, or probably decades, and I know that I have been agitating for years to see something more proactive from the industry,” he told the ABC.
“If you were foolish enough to leave your TV out the front of your house every single day, and have it stolen, there would come a point in time where we would say, ‘We’re not taking a report from you for that.’”
Lee said the comments were “unhelpful, and not sending the right signal to the community”.
Noel Lane said he had already increased security in his truck yard following the March 9 theft.
His own fuel costs have almost doubled since late February, forcing him to apply a 15 per cent fuel surcharge to customers to keep his trucks on the road.
Lane said some of his drivers had experienced fuel shortages on the journey between Melbourne and western Victoria.
“There’s been a bit of a rush,” he said. “Panic buying has caused a bit of grief.
“Everyone wanting so much is just like the old toilet paper [situation]. It’s not that there was ever going to be a shortage – people just demand more than they can get out there.”
Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio told reporters that demand had increased anywhere between 300 and 400 per cent in some parts of the state. She said the surge in demand had exacerbated rising fuel prices.
“What has happened, of course, is that there has been this massive spike in demand in some parts of the state and indeed across the country, as people worry about fuel supplies over the coming weeks,” she said. “And that’s also led, of course, to a massive increase in the price of those liquid fuels.”
Peter Anderson is director of APCO, which operates 30 service stations in regional Victoria.
He said there had been no interruptions to supply at any of them.
“The panic buying is still about a little bit,” Anderson said.
“I am not having any problems with supply because I have a contract for supply from both Viva and Mobil, and they’ve been terrific. People are having problems getting supply, but these are rats and mice of the industry that basically don’t commit to the major oil companies that bring the product in.”
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