DOE Is Requested to Investigate the Non-compliance of Oil Industry Players

The association of the big oil companies in the country called the Philippine Institute of Petroleum (PIP), has stated that there are industry actors that shortchange the volume of biofuels that are being mixed into the petroleum products, which is a violation of Republic Act 9367 or the Biofuels Law.

“There are reports of non-compliance to the current required blends at the retail level, which contributes to the uneven playing field,” says the group.

The group has also said that “there is a need for strict monitoring by the DOE at the retail level on compliance to the required biofuels – 2.0% for biodiesel; and 10% for bioethanol.”

With this in mind, the PIP has recommended that the DOE must increase its resources and labor pool

“to effectively and regularly conduct field testing and inspection.”

Since the cost of locally-produced biofuels is more expensive, some are not complying with the policy and are making use of deficient blending of the needed biofuels into the oil commodities.

From the perspective of the PIP, aside from the long-standing issue of oil smuggling, the short-changed biofuel blends allow some to offer lower prices, although this violates laws.

The PIP stressed that not complying with the necessary scale of biofuel blends can tilt the level playing field because complying companies would have to spend more and increase their offering prices to customers.

“The government must increase its monitoring of unreasonably low-priced products which may be because of either unpaid taxes or due to smuggling or non-compliance to PNS (Philippine National Standards) which also cover the biofuel blend,”  says the PIP.

Source: Manila Bulletin