Methodology and Disclosures

Reserve data source

Reserve stock days and surplus percentages are sourced from the DCCEEW (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water) Minimum Stockholding Obligation (MSO) statistics, published as a public Power BI report.

• Stock days: weekly obligation-day figures for petrol, diesel, and jet fuel — representing how many days of national consumption the current onshore stock covers.
• Surplus %: how far above the MSO minimum requirement each fuel type sits, expressed as a percentage (e.g. +78% above MSO for petrol).
• Data is queried directly from the Power BI API hourly. No authentication is required — the report is published publicly by DCCEEW.
• Incomplete weeks (where reporting entities have not yet submitted data) are automatically filtered out. The most recent valid week is used.

What is displayed

• Stock days on each fuel card are the raw values from DCCEEW — no burn multipliers, reporting-lag adjustments, or shipment credits are applied.
• Surplus % is displayed exactly as reported by DCCEEW, representing the volume held above the mandatory minimum for each fuel type.
• The countdown timer ticks down from the raw stock-day figure for the most critical fuel. It provides a visual sense of urgency but is not a live sensor feed.

Urgency sorting

Fuels are sorted by urgency using two criteria:

1. Stock days (ascending) — fewer days of stock = more critical.
2. Surplus % above MSO (ascending, used as a tiebreaker) — when two fuels have the same stock days, the one with a lower surplus above the minimum requirement is ranked as more critical.

For example, if diesel and jet fuel both have 30 stock days but diesel is only 18% above MSO while jet is 25% above, diesel is ranked as the more critical fuel.

Fuel pricing data

• Station-level fuel prices are sourced from official state government APIs (NSW/ACT, QLD, SA, WA, VIC, NT, TAS).
• Prices refresh every 30 minutes from each upstream API.
• A price sanity band (60–800 c/L) filters out sentinel and outlier values from upstream data.

Data refresh schedule

• Reserve data: hourly from DCCEEW Power BI API, plus a daily GitHub Actions refresh at 3pm AEDT.
• Fuel prices: every 30 minutes from state government APIs.
• Fallback: if live data is unavailable, the most recent snapshot is served.

Countdown display

The headline cards show raw stock days for clarity. The countdown timer includes hours, minutes, and seconds for a visual sense of scale. Both are derived from the same official DCCEEW data and do not represent direct tank sensor telemetry.

Anomaly indicators

Price spread and week-on-week spikes are presented as transparency indicators only. They are not legal conclusions.

Legal and credibility note

AussieOilWatch is a public-interest transparency tool. Reserve and pricing data is sourced from official government publications and APIs. This site is not liable for any inconsistencies in data provided by third-party government sources.

AussieOilWatch highlights unusual patterns for public scrutiny but does not accuse individual retailers of unlawful conduct. Nothing on this site constitutes financial advice.