Why won’t MBIE list the ships? Tracking data makes a mockery of ‘official’ fuel update

The Taxpayers’ Union is calling on MBIE to be transparent about which fuel-carrying ships are expected to arrive in New Zealand, so the public can have a clear picture of fuel stock flows into the country - rather than relying on five-day-old data, as released by MBIE earlier today.

The Taxpayers’ Union’s fuel stock tracking website, FuelClock.nz, uses MBIE data but adjusts it for daily usage. It also tracks tanker movements using international ship-tracking services and New Zealand port schedules, but these movements cannot be reconciled with the official data.

The Fuel Clock is now showing less than 15 days of diesel actually available, far below the 21-day Minimum Stockholding Obligation (MSO) that Parliament set in law, while MBIE's official table continues to headline a figure of 44.8 days. 

Taxpayers’ Union spokesperson Tory Relf says:
 
"MBIE's headline number isn't wrong, but it is highly misleading. It adds together fuel in our storage tanks with fuel on ships thousands of kilometres away in international waters and, in some cases, with shipments the public has no way of independently verifying.”

"The nearest diesel tanker currently tracking toward New Zealand is still outside our Exclusive Economic Zone, near New Caledonia - at least two to three days’ sailing from any New Zealand port.”

“We have also been unable to verify a number of the ships MBIE includes in its ‘days’ cover’ figure against public port schedules or AIS vessel tracking data. That leaves New Zealanders being asked to take these figures on trust.”

“Last week, MBIE assured us that ships listed as ‘on-water’ had left port. The week before, they told us otherwise.”

“MBIE cites ‘commercial sensitivity’ as a reason for withholding detail. But industry experts, economists, and even fuel companies we have spoken to cannot identify any risk in releasing the names of these ships and their cargoes, information that becomes public as soon as the vessels arrive.”

“Let’s be clear, this isn’t about commercial sensitivity, it’s political sensitivity. Officials don’t want scrutiny of whether shipments are delayed or diverted.”

“For something this critical, that lack of transparency is unacceptable. A cargo bobbing near New Caledonia is not fuel you can put in a truck tomorrow morning and that’s exactly why the Fuel Clock separates what we have from what we’re still waiting on.”

How the Fuel Clock works

FuelClock.nz takes MBIE's own in-country stock figures, published twice a week and typically several days old by the time anyone sees them, and continuously draws them down using MBIE's own daily consumption rates, weighted for day of the week. That produces a live estimate of what is in country right now, not what was in country last Wednesday.
 
Incoming shipments are then split into two buckets based on what the public shipping data actually proves:

• Confirmed On-Water: Tankers that AIS vessel tracking shows are already inside New Zealand's Exclusive Economic Zone, or berthed and offloading at a New Zealand port. These are added to the "Total" reserves line.
• Likely / Scheduled: Tankers still outside the EEZ, up to three weeks away. These are shown to the user but are deliberately excluded from the reserves total, because vessels outside the EEZ can still be delayed, rerouted, or cancelled outright.

If the Fuel Clock can see that a vessel arrived before MBIE's reporting cut-off, that cargo is treated as already being captured in MBIE's in-country figure to prevent double counting.

Tonight, the Fuel Clock is showing zero confirmed diesel tankers inside the EEZ. The singular diesel tanker the country is relying on is still in the "Likely / Scheduled" bucket as it remains near New Caledonia. And some of the ships MBIE appears to be counting toward the national total cannot be located in any publicly available shipping data at all.
 
Spokesperson Tory Relf said: "This is the distinction MBIE's dashboard refuses to make. On paper everything looks fine. The reality is only 15 days of diesel on the ground, falling every day, with the nearest replacement tanker still thousands of kilometres away and any others unverifiable. Kiwis deserve to see much more transparency."
 
"The Fuel Clock was designed to be the early warning system that the official system isn't providing. Tonight, that warning light is on. Diesel has slipped below the legal minimum stock the Government itself legislated for, and New Zealanders are finding out from a dashboard created by a transparency group, rather than from the Ministry’s out of date ‘official’ source."
 
The Taxpayers' Union is calling on MBIE to:

• Publish daily rather than twice-weekly updates for the duration of the current disruption;
• Clearly separate in-country stock from confirmed on-water stock from scheduled shipments in its public communications; and
• Publish the list of vessels and tonnages its "days' cover" figure is built on, so the public can independently verify the claim. 

The Fuel Clock is free, live, and open to the public at www.FuelClock.nz