Woolby & Rehctub,
It is simpler than that.
With falling Australian crude oil input the cost of operating the refineries
is constant but the profit falls due to less output.
On top of that the large Singapore refineries are more efficient anyway.
The result is the oil companies can land petrol & diesel here cheaper
than we can import oil (plus our own oil) and produce petrol & diesel.
They are now exporting our oil, eventually 100% of it.
That is why Shell, Mobil etc are getting out.
BP may be different, as WA is so isolated from the eastern states.

The relevant data is
Australian crude = 450,000 barrels a day
Declining at 6% a year.
Australian consumption = 1,000,000 barrels a day approx.
The writing is clearly on the wall.
Convert trucks to CNG or rail.
Convert cars to CNG or electric.

Welcome to the post peak oil world.

My gut feeling is that Australia is about to burst like a balloon that gets a needle stuck into it.

No Wooley it will just deflate.

All indicators were up yesterday, which stunned Hockey and co. But they never mentioned that.
Doom and gloom will not get you anywhere, Our GDP has hat an all time high without any surge from mining. The downside is we are borrowing 288 million / day. Up 130 mill / day from labor.

579, don't get exited about the ups & downs, we are on the bumpy plateau.

Baz, Shaggy, Butch, thanks guys.

Currently I work in & out of the mining & service industries as a fitter, mostly in the Pilbara & around OZ. When not out on mine sites breathing dusts of various minerals and elements I work in the defence, electrical & refrigeration industry - primarily construction, maintenance & research. During the past few years, these sectors have gone through many ups & downs. Very few of them positive for Australia though, given the rebates on "Renewables" have now been scrapped.

The overwhelming concern is that big players have gone 'off shore' & most if not all construction projects here in NT/WA are built in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore with bigger components floated over and assembled on site...by surprise surprise 457 Visa tradies. Most are paid little more than $15.00 an hour. Then shepherded away by their minders, eat their cribs away from the locals, and never allowed to talk to anyone nearby. The amount of time I have seen spent by construction companies on doing re-works on sites are astronomical, the costs are staggering, quite often blowing out the projects by years. Still our governments condone this, while local people are shut out.

The current Darwin Inpex LNG construction - hardly any 'locals' as in Darwin/NT tradies on site, lots of FIFO's with all the associated living away from home allowances staying at the Howard Springs camp for their 4 weeks on, 1 week off rosters. Too many overseas workers here.

Manufacturing has been dead in Oz for 3 decades or more, Fraser kicked it off, & Hawke and Keating killed it off well and truly. Since then our vehicle and other major manufacturing has been on life support.

Yes, as Lord Louis Mountbatten once said when rescued from a sunken cruiser in WWII, & I paraphrase him here "...when the ship sinks all the muck floats to the surface..."

Oz as we knew it, with Holdens, Fords and Valiants rusting away in paddocks is long gone. Hang onto the flotsam in the new era being Geelys, Great Walls and Hyundai I suppose.