Other than airmiles, it occurs to me our Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hasn't acquired much over the last fortnight during his Asian begging bowl tour.

Let's look at the statements that emanated from his meetings with his counterparts in Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia.

First on the agenda was a visit to Singapore which culminated this time last week with a smiling photo call and press conference with Lawrence Wong.

"Essential goods will continue to move between Australia and Singapore. That includes liquefied natural gas or LNG, which Australia supplies to Singapore, as well as refined petroleum products like diesel, which Singapore supplies to Australia," said Wong.

If he could have mumbled the next line into his collar, I'm sure he would have done.

"We will keep these flows going as long as upstream supplies continue."

It won't escape readers' notice how much heavy lifting is being done by the second half of that sentence.

Next up, was this week's trip to Brunei to meet with Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah.

"We reaffirm our commitment to strengthen energy and food security, to support the flow of essential goods between our two countries, including petroleum oils, such as diesel and crude oil," the two leaders said in their jointly released statement.

Albanese later told reporters: "What's guaranteed is that they are not looking at imposing export restrictions on Australia…in today's uncertain world, there are pressures on all of the economies in the region."

A lot of heavy lifting being done by the last few words of that sentence too.

And then finally was the PM's visit to Malaysia where he met with Anwar Ibrahim who neatly described the current situation as "post normal times."

"Malaysia and Australia share strong interdependence in energy resources, including fuel and LNG. We have existing agreements and today we reaffirmed our commitment to them," said Ibrahim.

Not a lot of love coming out of those words either.

I'm not saying the visits were totally without merit and of course diplomacy and flesh pressing and face time accounts for a lot in the world of politics.

But when the acquisition of two new shipments of diesel, secured under the deal struck with the EFA and Viva, Ampol, iOR and Park Fuels, is trumpeted as a notable "win," you know something's gone awry.

Two shipments is 100 million litres.

That's what Australia uses in a day.

At full capacity, the still smouldering Corio refinery in Geelong and the Ampol refinery in Lytton would be able to produce that much in just over a week.

No need for special deals or shipments. Just domestically refined.

Makes you think, doesn't it?