Diesel prices in some regional Australian communities have broken through $3.30 a litre, with Armidale recording $3.39 per litre. Now, Forest and Wood Communities Australia is warning that the hardwood supply chain that feeds the country’s homes, mines, and farms cannot keep absorbing the cost.
That is according to Steve Dobbyns, Executive Chair of Forest and Wood Communities Australia, who spoke to Wood Central today. “Local fuel distributors on the Mid North Coast are already paying more than $3.00/litre for diesel, and we will see that reflected at the bowser as early as Monday morning,” he said.
The pressure is not falling evenly. “With 90 per cent of our population living on just 0.25 per cent of Australia’s land mass, regional communities are feeling the impact of surging fuel prices more acutely than their city cousins,” Dobbyns said. “The cost of fuel is up to a dollar higher in regional communities, and they can’t just walk to the shops or catch a train.”
The supply chain under threat extends beyond just hardwoods used in floors, cladding, and other appearance-based finishes. Hardwood from Australia’s regional forests feeds construction sites across the eastern seaboard, props mine shafts, and provides the residues powering Australia’s first green steel facility.
It also supplies the hardwood pallets that move food and fibre from the farm gate to city shelves. It comes as Wood Central on Friday reported that the federal government, under pressure in Parliament, directed the ACCC to impose hard penalties against profiteering at the bowser.
Price gouging is only part of the problem. The other part is sovereign capacity. Strategic onshore reserves bolstered since 2023 are stored in Geelong and Brisbane — not in the forest corridors of the Mid North Coast, the New England tableland or the south-east. With global oil markets continuing to price in risk from the Strait of Hormuz, operators running diesel-intensive supply chains through regional Australia face a cost structure with few relief valves.
At $3.39 a litre, that is nearly 50 cents above the price that prompted Parliament to demand answers three days ago.
