A worldwide shortage of a diesel exhaust fluid will soon impact Cape York trucking companies, although freight is unlikely to be impacted.

AdBlue is a fluid used to reduce pollution from diesel engines, made mostly of urea and water.

A global shortage of urea has caused China, the greatest supplier of the ingredient, to cap its exports to protect its own supplies and control soaring domestic prices of AdBlue.

Australia will soon receive a crucial supply of diesel exhaust fluid from Indonesia, as the federal government approaches Middle Eastern nations for help avoiding a crisis that could grind the transport sector to a halt.

Simon Tuxworth runs one of the biggest trucking companies in Far North Queensland and said the shortage of AdBlue was a concern for Tuxworth and Woods, but didn’t believe that services would be impacted.

“About a third of our trucks use it but there are ways around it,” he said.

“Our supplier came to us last week and said there would be an issue with supply but we have plans in place.”

Federal Trade Minister Dan Tehan is urging businesses not to stockpile the anti-pollution additive.

Mr Tehan told the ABC there were around seven weeks of supply left in Australia – more than the five weeks reported late last week – after negotiations with trading partners.

“I’ve spoken to my Indonesian counterpart and there is some supply in Indonesia that we should be able to access in the coming weeks,” he said.

“There have been representations made to Saudi Arabia, to the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and also Japan.”

About 80 per cent of Australia’s urea stocks come from China.

Mr Tehan said he was confident that enough supply could be guaranteed in coming weeks but urged companies not to stockpile AdBlue in the meantime.

“There is clear supply there that we can bring to Australia and given we have seven weeks already in stock, we are very confident we will be able to get the urea that we need into the country,” Mr Tehan said.

National Road Transport Association chief executive Warren Clark said Australia wasn’t the only nation hit by the AdBlue shortage.

Mr Tehan said the shortage showed the need for Australia to “firm up supply chains ourselves”.

“The pandemic has demonstrated that some supply chains are fragile and as demand has picked up, China is obviously using the AdBlue that it has for its domestic market,” he said.

This article appeared in Cape York Weekly, 14 December 2021.