Having done nothing as the oil majors closed down the Marsden Point refinery, the Ardern government is now belatedly moving into the market to ensure what it calls “supply resilience”.
Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods says she wants “to strengthen NZ’s fuel sector” through a suite of initiatives to encourage more competition.
She doesn’t say why suddenly there should be a need for more competition, but implicitly there is criticism of the big petroleum companies for their high prices – as if government taxation wasn’t taking more out of motorists’ wallets than the actual cost of the petrol.
