How smarter infrastructure could ease Australia’s fuel crisis

Expert commentary by Dr Ahmed Farouk Kineber, CQUniversity Lecturer of Project Management

Australia is now grappling with a fuel crisis. Hundreds of service stations have run dry, emergency reserves are being release and prices have surged sharply in just a matter of weeks. 

The immediate trigger may sit offshore, tied to geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, but the conditions that allowed this disruption to hit so hard were not created overnight. They have been building for years.

Infrastructure impact

To understand why, we need to shift how we think about infrastructure.

In Value Management (VM), the focus is not on the physical assets themselves, the pipelines, refineries or storage facilities, but on the functions those assets are expected to deliver. VM is a structured, evidence-based approach to decision-making that seeks to maximise value by aligning what a system does with what stakeholders actually need.

Infrastructure exists to serve a purpose, and that purpose is not fixed. It evolves as the world around it changes.

This is where a critical issue emerges: while the world changes, infrastructure often does not. And more importantly, neither do the assumptions behind it.

The function drift

This is what I describe as ‘function drift’.

Australia’s fuel network was originally designed for a very different context. It prioritised efficiency and cost-effectiveness, underpinned by relatively stable global markets, diverse supply chains, and strategic reserves aligned with international minimums. 

At the time, those design choices were logical. They reflected the risks and realities of that era but those conditions have shifted.

Domestic refineries have closed and supply chains have become more concentrated. Strategic reserves have, at times, slipped below recommended levels. Critical supply routes now pass through increasingly contested regions. While the physical system has not dramatically changed, the expectations placed on it have.

What was once an efficiency-driven network is now expected to deliver resilience. What was once about cost optimisation is now about continuity under disruption. In effect, a commercial logistics system has taken on the characteristics of a national security asset.

Yet this shift has not been systematically assessed.

There has been no consistent, structured process to ask if the system still delivering what Australia actually needs? And if not, what needs to change and when?

Function drift does not announce itself. It builds gradually, often invisibly, as external conditions evolve and internal assumptions remain static. By the time a shock exposes the gap, that gap is already significant.

The current fuel crisis is not simply the result of a single geopolitical event. It is the consequence of a long-term misalignment between what our infrastructure was designed to do and what it is now required to deliver.

Value Management offers a way to address this

It provides a structured approach to defining what critical systems must achieve in today’s context, assessing whether existing assets can meet those needs and identifying where investment, redesign or policy intervention is required.

 Importantly, it encourages decision-making that is robust across a range of future scenarios, not just those that mirror the past.

CQUniversity’s Sustainable Project and Asset Management Research Group is developing frameworks and approaches to support more informed, forward-looking infrastructure decisions across sectors - from fuel and energy to transport, water and beyond.

Function drift is everywhere. The fuel crisis just made one example of it impossible to ignore. There is much more to share as our work develops.