BEN HARVEY: We need to hit the gas on building oil refinery in Australia’s north west

Taxpayers are about to spend millions of dollars working out whether we should build a fuel refinery in Karratha in WA’s north.

It makes strategic sense to put it in the heart of the Pilbara mining industry because without diesel those big yellow trucks are 400-tonne road blocks.

Remember that Hard Yakka ad where those buff miners were pulling the Haulpak up the hill? The frightful hoo-ha in the Strait of Hormuz could make that a reality.

Building a refinery makes political sense because I am pretty sure I can recall hearing about how Australia is an energy superpower.

I can’t recall where I read it. Hang on, it’s just come to me — I read it in every State and Federal press statement about energy that was written in the past five years.

The same politicians who talk up our superpower status have clearly worked out that it’s only a matter of time before someone points out the absurdity of calling yourself an energy superpower when you can’t fill your own petrol tanks and at any one moment are one Donald Trump military brain fart away from being a nation of hitchhikers.

Of course we should build the bloody thing! It will cost three times more than we think and take three times longer to commission but that shouldn’t put us off.

The only waste of money is the “feasibility” study that’s just been commissioned. Have a look around Karratha and you will see a lot of industrial kit that was deemed feasible; I can’t see how a facility that will produce the fuel to make the other kit work could be considered anything but.

Let’s build it but do so without labouring under the misapprehension that one refinery will mean we gain anything like fuel sovereignty.

We are still going to have to import a lot of the oil to make the diesel, unleaded and aviation fuel we need.

The energy majors extract some oil from their fields off the North-West but not much (relative to the volumes of LNG produced) and it’s not always the right type.

It turns out the old Castrol ad was right; oils ain’t oils.

The possible new refinery that taxpayers will no doubt end up subsidising in perpetuity could be built by industrial colossus Perdaman, which is owned by Perth squillionaire Vikas Rambal.

If Rambal says he can do it then it will get done but taxpayers are going to have to de-risk the project for him to stay at the table.

He has a pretty full dance card at the moment, having commissioned a XXXL-sized fertiliser plant down the road from where the refinery could be built.

The prospect of Labor (through WA Premier Roger Cook and PM Anthony Albanese) helping a billionaire make ever more money isn’t a great look but the ALP needs to get over its class war sensibilities (not that Albo will blush at the prospect of getting in bed with a billionaire; revelations of his Point Piper fundraising lunch with magnate Felix Lee suggests this proud son of Labor is less eat the rich and more eat with the rich).

The PM’s a realist and knows that having no fuel means everything grinds to a halt, including the longevity of his prime ministership.

So, what’s the downside of constructing a local refinery?

First, we haven’t built one for about 60 years so I don’t know if we have the skilled labour that we need. Like The Castle’s Dale Kerrigan, we can dig a hole, but can we remember the petro-chemistry we learnt in year 12?

We’re going to have to because Pauline Hanson wants to stop the people who understand this stuff from getting past her army of Border Force agents.

Second, whatever fuel the new refinery does produce will be expensive. When it comes to industrial manufacturing, China will always do it cheaper, Germany will always do it faster and Italy will always do it with more style.

It’s not a perfect solution but with this week’s six-month anniversary of America’s war against Iran proving Operation Epic Fury is an epic f*** up, Australia is going to have to pull itself up by its bootstraps.

Cheap and abundant fuel made locally might be a pipedream but it’s still more probable than peace in the Middle East.