Lotilla to vehicle owners: Use cheaper gasoline with 20% ethanol blend

Fuel pumps. INQUIRER files

MANILA, Philippines — Vehicle owners can now voluntarily use gasoline with 20 percent ethanol blend, Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla announced on Tuesday.

According to Department of Energy (DOE) secretary, government will promote this blend towards the end of the year.

“For those of you who are using gasoline, you know that we have a mandatory requirement of 10 percent blend of ethanol with gasoline,” Lotilla said in a Palace briefing.

“The new policy that we will be implementing is voluntary and raising it to 20 percent,” he reported.

“And this is primarily a price mitigation measure because ethanol, especially imported ethanol, is cheaper than the price of gasoline,” he explained.

He said gasoline without ethanol currently costs around P56.89 per liter.

“It will result in a price differential of around one peso and 28 centavos or up to even one peso and 50,” the cabinet member said.

Ethanol is defined as a colorless, volatile flammable liquid that is the intoxicating agent in liquors and is also used as solvent.

It is also called ethyl alcohol.

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