San Carlos Bioenergy Inc. (SCBI) announced that it was halting the production of Bioethanol till the issue of imported bioethanol tariff would be addressed by the government that was resulting in a monthly loss of P15 million to their business. Right now imported bioethanol from Brazil is levied only 10% in tariffs that is making their price uncompetitive and resulting in Oil Companies purchasing abroad rather than buying locally.

Bioethanol producers in the Philippines have already expressed their disgust at the government’s inaction on the tariff issue that was harming this fledgeling industry.
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Green Future Innovations, Inc. announced a plan to put up a 54 million liter ethanol plant in San Mariano, Isabela that will cost $120 million dollars. The bioethanol production plant will use sugarcane as feedstock that will be sourced from a nearby 11,000 ha sugarcane plantation.

Green Future Innovations is a venture between Japanese companies; Itochu Corp., JGC Corp. Also with them are Philippine Bioethanol and Energy Investments Corp., and GCO, a holding company from Taiwan.
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In a forum recently, the head of the Ethanol Producers Association of the Philippines (EPAP), Jose Maria T. Zabaleta, expressed disgust at the government’s failure to provide the necessary support to the local bioethanol industry that is still in its infancy that will allow it to stand on its feet.

These are support in terms of safeguards and assurance. An example of which that was pointed out was the failure of the previous administration to implement a 20% tariff on imported ethanol. Right now, gasoline companies are able to source bioethanol from brazil at zero tariff and at cutthroat prices.
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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.
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Petron announced that they were looking for more local bioethanol suppliers to execute supply agreements with in order to meet their target of compliance with the Philippine Biofuel Law which mandates 5% mixture of bioethanol in the gasoline they sell at their pumps. Current output shows that the local bioethanol producers can only meet about 38% (83 million liters) of the demand for bioethanol.

Petron currently has a supply agreement with San Carlos Bioenergy Inc. (SCBI), a local bioethanol processor with capacity of 125,000 li/day.
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Publicly listed Alsons Consolidated Resources announced that they are dropping their cassava based bioethanol project in Cagayan De Oro after a board vote last Friday. The reason given to the Philippine Stock Exchange was because of ambiguities in the Biofuels Act as well as delays in the release of the Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) from the Dept of Environment.
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