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The war in Iran and concerns about oil supplied from the Middle East through the strait of Hormuz have put the spotlight on Australia’s reliance on imported petrol and diesel.

As fuel prices spiked, conservatives – particularly in Queensland – have argued the solution to a crisis tied to fossil fuels is to build more oil infrastructure such as refineries and storage.

But does it make sense?

What are conservatives asking for?

To guard against future fuel shocks, the Queensland premier, David Crisafulli, has been touting the notion that Australia needs to “drill, refine and store” more of its own fuel and has flagged two ideas for the state.

Crisafulli has claimed there is a “sea of oil” in the Taroom Trough, west of Brisbane, that could enhance sovereign capability.

But his resources department has said the actual “volume and extent” of any liquid hydrocarbons in the trough “are not yet fully understood”. Other experts have also urged caution.

The federal Coalition has also suggested the country should make $800m available in government-backed loans to increase the amount of fuel stored in the country to 60 days.

This week Crisafulli said his government was inviting companies to submit proposals for either fuel storage or refining projects at government-owned sites at ports in Brisbane, Townsville, Mackay, Gladstone, Abbot Point and Bundaberg.

Where does Australia’s fuel come from and how much do we use?

The federal government’s current rules for holding fuel reserves – known as the minimum stockholding obligation – puts the onus on importers and refiners to keep stocks.

Refiners of petrol and jet fuel have to hold 24 days of usual demand in reserve. Importers have to hold 27 days. For diesel, refiners hold 20 days and importers have to hold 32 days.

The latest figures from 28 April showed Australia had 43 days of petrol, 28 days of jet fuel and 33 days of diesel in reserve.

Australia consumed the equivalent of just over 1m barrels of oil every day last year, according to government data reviewed by Kevin Morrison, an analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

Australia’s production of oil though was at just 61,000 barrels a day, the lowest levels for more than half a century, Morrison says.

“About 80% of the crude oil we use is imported,” Morrison says.

“We produce only about 5% of what we consume and our two refineries are capable of making about 22%. Their combined capacity is about 230,000 barrels per day.”

Most of the petrol and diesel used in Australia – about 90% – comes to the country already refined. Major suppliers are Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea.

Would building more refineries help?

Since 2010, five Australian refineries have closed. A reduction in the amount of oil being drilled locally and competition from mega-refineries in the Asia region were behind the closures. Only two refineries – Brisbane and Geelong – remain.

“There is no point in building new refineries without the crude oil to put into them. And we don’t really have any,” says Tony Wood, a senior fellow in climate and energy at the Grattan Institute.

“We know that previously having our own refineries was uneconomic. They were killed by the economies of scale of the big refineries in south-east Asia.”

Queensland, with its long freight routes and mining, uses about a quarter of all the diesel sold in Australia, Wood says.

The Queensland government has been hard-selling the prospects for a “sea of oil” in the Taroom Trough which, despite the enthusiasm from senior ministers, remains “highly speculative”, Morrison says.

He says new refineries could take a decade to build and would not enhance Australia’s fuel security “because we would still rely on oil coming in to process”.

Wood says: “What Queensland has learned is that we’re at the end of very long supply chains [for fuel]. Their best strategy is to break those links. Electrification [of transport] is well under way.”

If Australia could reduce its demand for oil by using more electric cars and trucks, then “the amount of storage we need goes down as we electrify”, Wood says.

What are the alternatives to building more oil infrastructure?

While Australia is behind other developed countries in terms of rolling out electric vehicles, rising fuel prices have accelerated sales in recent months. EVs accounted for about 15% of new vehicle sales in March – about double the levels 12 months ago.

Much of the response from Australian conservatives to the pressure on fuel supplies from Donald Trump’s war in Iran has remained focused on oil.

“It is jaw-dropping for that to be the long-term response to this crisis,” says Francis Vierboom, the chief executive at Rewiring Australia.

“If you are making a plan for 10 years out and that plan is to expand oil infrastructure, then you’re ignoring some pretty basic economics. It would be crazy for Australia to stand back and go ‘the answer is oil’. The answer is to electrify as fast as we can.”

Saul Griffith, a co-founder of Rewiring Australia and a former energy policy adviser to the US government, wrote this week that Australians currently spent about $165m every day on imported petrol. If all cars and light vehicles were electric, the cost to fuel those vehicles would drop from today’s $25bn a year to about $5bn a year, he argued.

“Here is the number that should end the conversation in this country specifically,” Griffith wrote.

“A battery electric vehicle charged on rooftop solar costs approximately 2c per kilometre in fuel. A petrol car costs approximately 18c per kilometre. Nine to one. Our solar versus Middle Eastern oil.

“Overnight grid charging at average Australian residential rates means an EV costs around 4–5 c/km. Charging from a public fast charge is 10-12c/km. In every case, electric charging wins.”