The Department of Energy (DOE) is calling all relevant industry stakeholders to submit inputs to the planned enforcement of a Philippine National Standards (PNS), requiring a 20 percent ethanol blend to gasoline products.
A notice issued by Atty. Rino Abad, director of the DOE-Oil Industry Management Bureau and chairperson of the Technical Committee on Petroleum Products and Additives (TCPPA), stated that the new standard “addresses the technical requirements of gasoline containing 20-percent bioethanol or E-Gasoline (E20) and suitable test methods.”
The proposed standard “incorporates the limit of sulfur content at 50 ppm (parts per million), maximum to comply (with) the Euro 4/IV emission requirement” in keeping with the administrative orders issued by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in 2015 and 2016.
Presently, the mandated blend for gasoline products being retailed at the pumps is at 10-percent by volume, a policy in the deregulated downstream oil industry since 2012.
The increase of ethanol blend to gasoline products had been a long-standing proposal of players in the biofuel industry, but the lack of local feedstock for higher volume of domestic ethanol production served as a major snag to the planned policy enforcement.
And since the most common feedstock for bioethanol production is from sugar cane, there had been concerns on competition with the food chain, primarily farmers' sugar production for local consumption.
Even in the prevailing 10-percent blend, sizeable portion of the ethanol supply being procured by the oil companies had been from imports, hence, negating the overall intent of the Biofuels Law (Republic Act No. 9367) to provide value-added opportunities for local farmers.
In the planned hike of ethanol blend to 20 percent, the DOE stipulated that such “will support the future energy policies towards the integration of higher bioethanol blends in petroleum/fuel sector and promoting the use of indigenous and renewable energy resources with the end view of reducing dependence on imported oil.”
The department further qualified that the policy is "consistent with the continuing program of the government towards the use of cleaner fuels by considering the regional/global thrust towards harmonization of fuel quality standard specification, vehicle technology and emission standards with due regard to the environment, vehicle performance, health and safety of the public as well as ensuring supply availability.”
At this stage, there are no clear-cut policies laid down yet how local production of bioethanol could be shored up, that way, the oil companies will no longer need to import the volume they would be needing for biofuel blending into their products.