New Zealand no longer has an oil refinery. However, New Zealand does export oil from its onshore and offshore oil wells. The shutting down of NZ's state of the art oil refinery is the biggest act of corporate vandalism NZ has endured. It was an act of sabotage.
New Zealand must immediately start refining oil once more. That's because, when the current trade war becomes kinetic, NZ will be isolated and unable to fuel itself. The country will grind to a halt, no farms operating, no food in the supermarkets. Things will get very bad very quickly.
Currently, NZ exports about 31,000 barrels of oil per day, and imports 108,000 barrels of oil equivalent (dated 2016 figures, but this is the best I've got). That leaves a deficit, but here's the thing; there is sufficient output from its own resources to keep farms and industry functioning.
Clearly, there are vast resources available, but these need the wells to be drilled and developed, so I'm just going with what is currently being produced.
When the proverbial hits the fan, NZ will be unable to obtain jet fuel, petrol, diesel or bitumen from its usual sources in Southeast Asia. NZ will be completely isolated. Back in the 1940's, NZ went through this as it couldn't get reliable supplies during WWII. Cars back then even resorted to running on coal gas. However, industry did not rely on fossil fuels to the same extent as they do now. If they did use fossil fuels, it was firing up boilers using coal, or they relied on non-fossil fuel hydro electricity. At home, people cooked using piped coal gas from the local gas works. Add to that, NZ had the southern hemisphere's largest fleet of cargo vessels (Union Steamship Company), so it could obtain whatever it needed using its own vessels.
Now, NZ has no ships. In maybe only a few months time, NZ will be sitting around begging someone to spare capacity and please send it some diesel.
Do you think the NZ government will be acting on this, and doing something? Nah, they're too thick, they're a bunch of undereducated morons.
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