The Department of Energy (DOE) has said that it has yet to decide on its stance over the control of bioethanol imports of the oil companies. Under the Philippine Biofuel Law, Oil companies are allowed to import bioethanol if the local demand is not enough to meet their requirements in order to comply with the mandatory mixing of bioethanol with the gasoline that they sell at their stations. In line with this they have said that one of the more trickier issues that they have to decide on is with regards to the issue of the price of bioethanol.
Last month, the Ethanol Producers Association of the Philippines (EPAP) said that if the DOE fails to control the importation of bioethanol (currently from Brazil) the country fails in implementing the Biofuel because the fossil importation that is supposed to be prevented by switching to bioethanol has been replaced with bioethanol that is being imported from overseas. This in turn goes against the purpose of the Biofuel Law which was to make the country energy independent as well as switching energy production to the local market via production of locally produced bioethanol.
Simply spoken, this all really boils down to pricing. Oil companies don’t want to buy locally because of the price, so they import from abroad. Bioethanol producers want to stop this by asking the DOE to control the importation.
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Category: Bioethanol, Automotive, Law
