The comments come as ASX-listed Viva reported a profit of $596 million for 2022, up 211 per cent from a year earlier. The profit result was 6 per cent lower than most analysts’ had forecast, but the company’s full-year dividends of 27¢ a share were higher than expected.

“[The] result missed market expectations across the board on higher operational expenditure,” Barrenjoey head of energy Dale Koenders said.

Fuel prices and margins rose sharply during the year as Western nations imposed rolling sanctions on Russian fuels to starve Moscow of revenue it needed to fund the war, at the same time as demand increased due to economies re-emerging from pandemic lockdowns.

Profit margins from processing crude oil into transport fuels at the Geelong refinery surged across the year to more than $US17 ($24.67) a barrel, up from $US7 a barrel in 2021.

Wyatt on Tuesday described the results as “outstanding” and a demonstration of Viva Energy’s ability to perform strongly through periods of enormous market volatility and disruption, while maintaining supplies to customers.

“All parts of the company performed extremely well in financial year 2022,” he said.

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Viva had previously intended to make a final investment decision on the LNG project last year with an aim to start imports by the winter of 2024. The company on Tuesday said the timeline now depended on the outcome of Victoria’s Environmental Effects Statement (ESS) approval process and “clarity over new federal regulation of gas markets”.

The project is also facing strong resistance from environmentalists and some community members, who argue it is too close to residential areas and schools, and fear it will set back Australia’s climate ambitions by entrenching the use of planet-heating fossil fuels.

While Australia is a major producer of gas, massive amounts are locked in to contracts to be sold to overseas buyers, or are in faraway parts of the country where it is either too expensive or physically impossible to supply demand centres in the south that need the fuel the most. Offshore gas fields in Bass Strait, which once supplied up to half of east-coast gas demand, are now in rapid decline, and authorities including the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) have issued repeated warnings about supply shortfalls in coming years.