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VietNamNet Bridge – While the government is encouraging to develop ethanol petrol products to protect the environment, E5 petrol, in the Environment Law to be applied as of 2012, is still listed as the product that bears high environment tax rate. This explains why E5 petrol remains not cheap enough to attract users.
The good solution to protect environment…
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Scientists have pointed out that E5 is a good solution for the fuel problem, because this is an environment friendly product which can be used instead of fossil fuels like oil and coal, which are getting exhausted.
Research conducted by the Hanoi University of Technology on two kinds of vehicles – Honda Super Dream (motorbike) and Ford Laser (car) – showed that if using E5, vehicle users can save 5 percent of fuel in comparison with A92 petrol, while vehicles can still run well.
Especially, it is less costly to use E5 petrol, because this kind of fuel can prolong the life of some parts of the engines. Meanwhile, the longer engine life also means lower costs on maintenance.
Most importantly, the widespread use of biofuels allows utilizing available
fuels and reducing the reliance on oil.
Emission measurements show that the vehicles using biofuels always have the CO, CO2 concentrations lower or equal to that of A92 petrol. Especially, the hydro carbon concentration (HC) of E5 petrol is 39, lower than that of A92 at 61. The test, once again, has confirmed the conclusion by scientists that the use of E5 petrol allows cleaner emissions.
Nong nghiep Vietnam has quoted an expert as saying that “if Vietnam only uses E5 petrol, it will be able to save 6 trillion dong a year which is the spending on 300 million liters of petrol.”
… still not the choice of vehicle users
Statistics show that the sales of E5 petrol have been slowing down. Dau tu has quoted Nguyen Thi Dieu Hanh, a senior executive of PV Oil as saying “that to date, E5 petrol has been sold at 50 filling stations of PV Oil (95 percent are regular petrol, 5 percent is ethanol). In August 2010, when PV Oil began selling E5, the number of E5 sales points was 30 only. However, the sales of E5 have not increased in accordance with the increases of the number of sale points.”
According to Hanh, in the last five months of 2010, PV Oil sold 4200 cubic meters, or 4.2 million liters of E5. Meanwhile, since the beginning of the year, with the number of sale points increasing by two folds, PV Oil has also sold 4.2 million liters.
The Thai Thinh filling station in Hanoi, the first filling station in Vietnam which sells E5 petrol, has reported that the number of people buying E5 petrol just accounts for 10 percent of the total buyers.
Currently, only PV Oil and Petech are selling E5 at their 80 retail points, a modest number if noting that there are 14,000 retail points nationwide. Meanwhile, Petrolimex, which is the biggest distribution network of petroleum products, holds 60 percent of the market share with 6000 filling stations, and does not sell E5.
Why?
The problem is that E5 petrol is not cheap enough. Previously, E5 petrol’s price was lower by 500 dong per liter than A92 petrol, but the price gap between the two kinds of petrol has reduced to 200 dong.
This means that vehicle users will not be able to save much money if they use E5. Meanwhile, no motorbike and automobile manufacturer in Vietnam has officially stated that E5 would be good for the engines in their products.
While the government is encouraging to develop ethanol petrol products to protect the environment, E5 petrol, in the Environment Law to be applied as of 2012, is still listed as the product that bears high environment tax rate.
“To date, enterprises have not got any support from the government in selling E5, while it requires heavier investments to store and sell E5,” Hanh said.
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