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Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 5, 2021 15:14:32 GMT 12
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Post by 11SQNLDR on Aug 6, 2021 12:05:06 GMT 12
There's been a lot of 'stumbling into stupidity' in the last couple of years sadly & this is another example - what an appalling situation
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Post by oj on Aug 6, 2021 20:19:32 GMT 12
The world is full of educated fools.
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Post by 30sqnatc on Aug 6, 2021 20:28:13 GMT 12
The share holders of a private monopoly company vote to change their business and immediately its the governments fault ??
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Post by oj on Aug 6, 2021 20:39:44 GMT 12
Nobody thinks strategically any more. So we have a big salt-water moat to protect us. Now how do we guarantee safe passage for our future incoming fuel tankers?
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Post by retiredav8r on Aug 6, 2021 21:46:56 GMT 12
Typical greed of shareholders, they don't care about anyone except how much they can line their own pockets. Which government made the stupid decision to privatize the refinery?
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Post by Peter Lewis on Aug 6, 2021 22:17:22 GMT 12
I think it was a private venture right from the start.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 7, 2021 0:56:38 GMT 12
Marden point was built by the Labour government under Walter Nash in the 1960's.
It was expanded in the 1970's under Muldoon's National government who were building up our own oil and gas industry to give New Zealand independence from overseas prices and fluctuation thanks to the Iranian oil crisis. The government (taxpayers) still owned the refinery.
The 1980's Lange Labour government privatized Marsden point by giving the refinery to the newly formed consortium, the New Zealand Refining Company Limited, and also giving them $80 million along with it. That consortium was five oil companies from overseas.
One of the major companies in the consortium was Shell. The National government purchased Shell NZ in 2010 to generate profit its entity New Zealand Super (which funds NZ's superannuation scheme) and changed its name to Z in 2011. This was not fully government owned, ir was a partnership with Infratil, but the latter apparently sold their shares more recently.
So, if you're keeping up, that means one of the major shareholders in Marsden Point is Z, which is partly NZ government owned and controlled. So yes, the consortium is private business, but the people of New Zealand have a reasonably large stake in that business.
Well, for now anyway, as I read today that there are rumours that Z is about to be taken over! Whether that is the private shares or the government shares, they did not say, but the way this current government is hellbent on shutting down out oil and gas industry I guess it's inevitable a family jewel like Z will be in their sights for disposal.
So to those asking why the government should be concerned with a private business decision, you clearly never bothered to follow the link and listen to the RNZ piece. It is about security of the supply chain.
Does no-one remember the massive problems the fuel industry had when Iraq invaded Kuwait? NZ was suddenly left with fuel not coming from the Middle East in the quantities we needed, and when the opposition questioned why Marsden Point and our oil rigs were not producing our own local fuel, Labour had sold it all off and the refinery was partly dismantled. They had an emergency to try to get the damn place up and running again as our supply security had failed.
And only a few years back there was the massive fuel crisis when the pipeline was fractured and fuel was not getting to Auckland Airport and all the service stations.
Anything can happen in the system, and shutting down infrastructure ups that risk. If we have no refinery and there's a sudden war in the Middle East and supplies stop, we are screwed.
Part of good governance is to prepare for every eventuality that might happen. This country is always at best sailing very close to the wind, and at worst - like now - completely negligent in their responsibilities to provide capable infrastructure to keep the nation running and secure now and into the future. This government is walking away once again from responsibility by not enacting legislation stopping the refinery from closing. It'll close, we'll be less secure, prices will rise on fuel and all the goods it transports, and we will be a poorer nation for it.
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Post by harvard1041 on Aug 7, 2021 8:08:33 GMT 12
Fully agree there Dave, but sadly another example of short term thinking.... and non-engineering types making decisions well outside their areas of expertise Doesn't take much thought to realise that the original idea of the Refinery - a degree of NZ independence & control of costs - is still valid, and probably more so given the Covid examples showing us how we are right at the end of most supply lines. .....and of course this Govt wouldn't have anything to do with the gas, oil, & engineering industries.
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Post by retiredav8r on Aug 7, 2021 8:28:49 GMT 12
The whole fiasco goes back to the Muldoon think big project of the refinery expansion, that was mothballed soon after the project was completed. The think big NZ oil exploration and self contained oil industry was a failure. Blaming the current government is a continuation of those narrow minded like the share holders: more money for speculation and use other peoples money. This went on continuously under Key. The present government could buy back the refinery (just like they had to do with air NZ) imagine the uproar by the experts, camera clickers.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 7, 2021 8:51:52 GMT 12
The 1970's expansion was delivered two years late because of continual strike action stirred up by the opposition. And the mothballing was by the 1980's Lange government, and it bit NZ in the arse when the 1990 fuel crisis struck. It proves the very point here!
Yes the current government deserves blame if this important infrastructure is allowed to close. They should but it back, or at least buy a bigger interest in the plant, and actually run it properly - something this government won't be willing nor capable of doing. They'd rather borrow big money from China to spend on things no-one needs or asked for.
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Post by TS on Aug 7, 2021 9:37:37 GMT 12
Here, Here!!!!
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Post by tbf2504 on Aug 7, 2021 10:00:16 GMT 12
Like ANZ the government should have a 51% share holding of the refinery, primarily to ensure we have some capability for processing raw fuel oil if the overseas refineries (the nearest being Australia and Indonesia) cannot provide little old NZ fuel in a major crisis
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Post by oj on Aug 7, 2021 14:22:54 GMT 12
Very well said Dave and others. The Australians are facing a similar dilemma; closed refineries, importing all their refined fuel, no fuel reserves and all the tankers supplying the fuel to them are off-shore owned!
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Post by retiredav8r on Aug 7, 2021 21:16:14 GMT 12
The mothballing of the refinery started before the expansion project start, I was in the beginning of the 80's, how do I know, I was their!!! 1970? The consortium, JV2 (joint venture 2 - Badger/Chiyoto had begun sealing pipelines before they had any oil, fuel pass through them. Not a failure of the Labour Govt or unions(who loved the job as it hired over 3000 people) but was a failure of Muldoon's "Think big" program. I don't think the pipeline from New Plymouth to Marsden was ever completed, I could be wrong as I left NZ in 1982.
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Post by thelensofhistory on Aug 7, 2021 21:45:08 GMT 12
There's been a lot of 'stumbling into stupidity' in the last couple of years sadly & this is another example - what an appalling situation
The level of insanity beggars belief, but is a symptom of how poorly New Zealand tackles these issues.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 8, 2021 9:24:16 GMT 12
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Post by shorty on Aug 8, 2021 10:58:38 GMT 12
Maybe it's a cunning plan to get us all to buy electric cars?
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Post by johnnyfalcon on Aug 8, 2021 19:03:58 GMT 12
Are the P-8s and C-130Js electric?
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Post by shorty on Aug 8, 2021 19:38:44 GMT 12
Are the P-8s and C-130Js electric? Yes.but they do require an awful lot of size D cells!
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