Bioethanol fuel producers in the Philippines using sugar and sugarcane products will be required by the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) to pay a monitoring fee and bioethanol research, development and extension (BRDE) liens, the agency said.
SRA Administrator Ma. Regina Bautista-Martin said there is a need for the government to collect the monitoring fee and BRDE liens as there are no funds given to the agency’s bioethanol program under the General Appropriations Act of 2016.
“The government has to manage and sustain the research, development and extension needs of the bioethanol program. There’s no appropriation for the bioethanol program and the producers themselves willingly agreed to contribute this BRDE fund in the form of liens to finance their RDE project,” Martin said.
With this, the SRA released Sugar Order 5, which authorizes the collection of a monitoring fee of P0.05 per liter of bioethanol produced and a BRDE lien of P0.10 per liter of bioethanol from producers.
The SRA said the determination of the monthly volume of bioethanol produced will be based on the monthly data collected by the Renewable Energy Management Bureau of the Department of Energy (DOE).
The agency will then issue a billing statement to bioethanol producers upon the availability of the data.
The SRA said the BRDE lien collected will be set aside by the agency as a trust account for the purpose of funding the RDE projects of the bioethanol fuel industry endorsed by the Ethanol Producers Association of the Philippines (Epap).
All project proposals endorsed by the Epap to the SRA should be accompanied by a Sugar Board resolution.
The Epap and the SRA will enter into a memorandum of agreement on the terms and conditions for the utilization of the BRDE liens, the templates of project proposals and work plans and other requirements pursuant to the Commission of Audit rules and regulations.
Producers who will not pay the monitoring fee and the BRDE lien will be subject to suspension or revocation of their SRA registration and will cause the SRA to notify the DOE and member-agencies of the National Biofuel Board (NBB) of such suspension or revocation. This will, subsequently, subject them to applicable sanctions and penalties as provided under the NBB Joint Administrative Order 2008-001, series of 2008.
This policy will take effect upon the ratification of the Sugar Board and its publication in the UP Law Library, according to the agency.
The SRA said it will pursue programs, such as policy support for the Philippine biofuels and bioenergy programs this year. It will also focus on updating and simplifying biofuel production policies for feedstock producers, feedstock
traders and bioethanol-producers.
Martin earlier said the country is expected to have an additional bioethanol capacity of around 100 million liters, bringing the total bioethanol-production capacity of 11 facilities to 322 million liters.
The SRA said it has projected that two more molasses-based bioethanol plants—Absolut Distillery and Emperador Distillery—will start its operation in the first quarter of 2016.