“The revelation that the government is allowing the Marsden Point Oil Refinery pipes to be filled with concrete shows an astonishing level of economic ignorance,” says Rt Hon Winston Peters Leader of New Zealand First.
“At a time when we have massive shortages of supply, a looming economic crisis, and prices of oil and other essential materials going through the roof, Labour is allowing this kind of short-sighted jingoistic behaviour to occur by a foreign company on kiwi soil.”
“The simple fact is New Zealand needs to be open to looking at all options moving into the future that could give us economic flexibility and certainty to achieve a degree of self-sufficiency.”
“This removal of any future use of these pipes at Marsden Point is not a part of the decommissioning process – it is a private company being allowed to commit blatant economic treason,” says Mr Peters.
“The Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods needs to explain how this can be occurring under her nose at such an important and economically fragile time in our country.”
Megan Woods failed us as Minister of Housing and now is failing us as Minister of Energy.
I always worry when I agree with Winston Peters but I certainly think he is right on the button with this comment about Marsden Point . In an era of self looking after yourself and not dependant on other countries it is very foolish to allow this plant to shut and be destroyed
Foolish indeed. How does a woman with a PhD in History become minister of energy as she is indeed turning back the clock.
Well you know everything is generic these days – There are only one or three ways of looking at methods of management, learn them , and you just analyse which one to use and Bob’s your uncle and Fanny’s your aunt as the saying goes. (There’s only three choices of gender, mostly, so just choose a generic gender Bob or Fanny etc, and the rest is straightforward.) That deals with Megan Woods and how she could know about everything. Any other questions?
If you didn’t understand the above, then that is an explanation on its own as to why we can never get any reasoned policies and practices out of the pollies; their heads are elsewhere.
Marsden Point Refinery is a lose lose anyway you look at it. Refining NZ set up by the Rogernomics Labour Govt. basically handed over a publicly developed “Think Big” resource to the big oil companies who then proceeded to rape and pillage consumers and citizens generally, ever since–via transfer pricing and obvious conflicts of interest in the supply chain and retail price gouging.
Locals know there is crap in drums buried in the sand in the area. Crap such as that resulting from the switch from leaded to unleaded petrol and other by products and gunge. Will this ever be dealt with, just like Rio Tinto at Tiwai?
Fossil fuel days are numbered. Marsden relied on ships for product to refine and will rely on ships for refined product to store, and presumably pipe to Auckland via its one major asset–the pipeline. During the refinery wind down process green energy and hydrogen fuel type avenues were raised but Refining NZ did not want to know, leading to the then CEO Mike Fuge quitting who was in favour of new energy.
NZ needs to massively subsidise EVs and cycles and use our national power grid and increased solar to assist.
Not only a very good analysis but also offering up up a good alternative solution with your last paragraph Tiger, which is very rare on this site( you know the ones).
True TM about getting new fuels into use. But the business minded can’t wait to do the profit thing (they don’t want to end up with egg on their face as did Solid Energy which seemed to me to be trying to make viable moves into post fossiels but got no thanks for it).
And transfer pricing you might put a few words on how we could get rorted by that. It’s one of the diddles that can be played on the simple-minded peasantry which is what we are in NZ comparatively to the big boys,.
We are just being weakened by not being cunning and working out how to make this IMF and OECD etc work to suit our needs rather than follow best international economic practice. I guess we have to fill the pipe if we aren’t going to use it or we could have an explosion when the gases get the right percentages – like Pike River. That would hoist someone’s petard .
Hydrogen may be greener, but there is that thing about it being hard to contain – leaking through the usual materials. Will the remedy be worse than the disease? If the CEO left there will always be someone to crank up the barrel organ with the latest tune to ‘pop goes the weasel.’
Megan Woods continue to hide behind an outdated MBIE risk assessment; and Social Credit’s Petition with 18,000+ signatures sits in the Petition Committee’s in-tray. It is urgent that the committee questions the continued validity of the MBIE advice.
Putting the refinery into rest-mode at this time, was already an odd thing to do.
But to actively sabotage in advance, any future re-opening, is …incomprehensible.
It has echoes of the Climate Change group cancelling themselves. Someone puts up “an idea”, and so they run with it, without any thought or comprehension of the costs and consequences. – Including increased costs on the climate as we struggle to import more refined oil.
I hate to say this, as it’s Labour what dunnit, but how bloody stupid!!!!
And a message I have from National’s energy spokesperson states they see no problem with it’s closure – the market always knows best thinking I guess. That didn’t work for our railway or airline.
Thanks for that. Interesting…
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