Cookers Oil Managing Director, Peter Fitzgerald, used his appearance at the Victorian Transport Association’s Alternative Fuel Summit to deliver a blunt assessment of Australia’s renewable fuel prospects and a warning that without a mandate and genuine policy support, the nation will continue exporting its most valuable feedstocks and importing the finished fuels at a premium.
Fitzgerald, whose business pioneered a closed-loop, bulk-oil service for hospitality venues 25 years ago, framed his message around the practical realities of renewable fuel supply.
Cookers’ nationwide network of silver fresh-oil trucks, blue used-oil collection vehicles, and onsite tanks for kitchens forms a circular model that extracts maximum value from every litre.
“We’ve been involved since the start,” he said. “That experience has shown us both the opportunities and the very real limits.”
Cookers supplies restaurants with fresh cooking oil in bulk and collects the used oil through dedicated pumping units, eliminating the thousands of single-use 20-litre tins and unrecyclable bags that once dominated the market.
The Used Cooking Oil (UCO) is refined at Cookers’ facilities and sold into either stockfeed, where the fat component is valuable for cattle, pigs and poultry, or the renewable fuel industry.
“We like to think we have a positive environmental impact,” Fitzgerald said, noting Cookers’ investment in rainwater harvesting, solar power and even a long-running small wind turbine at its head office.
“But sustainability only works when the economics stack up.”
Fitzgerald walked delegates through the two key renewable fuels derived from UCO.
The first, biodiesel produced through transesterification, briefly boomed in the early 2000s. Cookers even built its own pilot plant.
“But we never commercialised it,” he said. “Government loved taking photos, but there was no mandate, no financial support and manufacturers weren’t eager to discuss warranty risk.”
Biodiesel also suffers from restrictive feedstock requirements and creates low-grade glycerin that is difficult to market. Just three small biodiesel plants now remain in Australia.
The second pathway, HEFA/HVO (hydrotreated esters and fatty acids), is, in Fitzgerald’s view, the future.
It can use a wider range of feedstocks: tallow, grease-trap waste, lower-grade oils and UCO.
Existing fossil refineries can also co-process the material. Two products emerge: renewable diesel and Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF).
“This technology makes far better use of available feedstocks,” he said. “It’s the modern, improved version of renewable fuels.”
Despite Australia’s agricultural strength, the available domestic feedstock pool is minuscule relative to demand.
National annual production includes Canola oil (1.35 billion litres), Tallow (550 million litres) and UCO (120 million litres).
Meanwhile, Australia consumes 40.4 billion litres of diesel and jet fuel annually.
“We’re a long way short of making big impacts,” said Fitzgerald. “The numbers don’t lie.”
Global demand is already intense. Cookers has hosted delegations this year from Japan, Sweden, Portugal and Malaysia, all seeking long-term supply contracts.
Fitzgerald stressed that renewable fuels do not work anywhere in the world without mandates or subsidies.
He pointed to SAF blending requirements already legislated overseas: EU: 2.0 per cent now, rising to 6 per cent by 2030; UK: 2.0 per cent rising to 10 per cent by 2030; and Singapore: 1.5 per cent up to 3.5 per cent by 2030.
“Australia has none and it’s currently under review,” said Fitzgerald. “We expect investment, but investors need certainty.”
Fitzgerald argued for a 2.0 per cent national target by 2030, calling it ambitious yet achievable. He also urged government to prioritise SAF, where industries have no other decarbonisation pathway available.
Fitzgerald said it ‘grinds’ him that Australia exports virtually all its UCO because there is no domestic processing base.
Several projects could change that:
- GrainCorp (Queensland): planning a 750 million-litre SAF facility by 2030.
- Cargill–BP (WA): considering a renewable fuel plant, though progress has slowed.
- Jet Zero & Wagner (Townsville): pursuing a 100 million-litre ethanol-based SAF plant.
“These are good initiatives, but we need more, and we need them spread across the country,” said Fitzgerald.
“I’d like to see an SAF plant in Brisbane and one in WA.”
Given Australia’s constrained feedstock supply, Fitzgerald said renewable fuels should be deployed where they have the highest impact.
For SAF, this means direct supply to airports, operating on a mass-balance approach: stronger blends at Brisbane and Perth, potentially zero in Sydney and Melbourne but still achieving a national 2.0 per cent outcome.
For renewable diesel, he said rail hubs and major freight carriers should be first in line.
“It costs more, and it needs rebates,” he said. “But that’s where it moves the needle.”
China is building eight SAF plants and is expected to stop exporting UCO within two to three years. Asia’s strong palm-oil-based mandates are already shifting global markets.
“It’s a race,” said Fitzgerald. “And Australia can’t rely on buying our way in.”
He reiterated the importance of a coordinated national approach.
“We’ve got to maximise the impact of what we have,” said Fitzgerald.
“We need mandates, we need targeted use, and we need local manufacturing.
“Otherwise we’ll keep shipping our feedstock out and buying back the final product or simply missing out altogether.”
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