A major fire occurred at Viva Energy's Corio oil refinery located in the city of Geelong near Melbourne. The fire was extinguished after 13 hours, there were no casualties.
The refinery supplies a significant part of the country's fuel and is currently operating partially. The government warned that gasoline production could be affected.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen called the situation an "incident at an inconvenient time." Because amid the global oil crisis, the country's fuel supply was already under pressure.
According to preliminary information, the fire was caused by equipment failure.
