Saigon Petro Company Limited recently proposed policies for the development of E5 RON 92 to be reviewed over the significant declines in sales of this biofuel.

The company cited statistics showing that the proportion of E5 RON 92 biofuel in retail sales dropped considerably in recent months, from an average of 30.06 per cent in 2018 to 25.58 per cent in January, 22.74 per cent in February and 19.79 per cent in March.

In the proposal submitted to the Ministries of Industry and Trade and Finance, the company said that the declining trend in sales of biofuel E5 RON 92 was anticipated to continue.

The company attributed the decline in sales of biofuel E5 RON 92 to consumers still preferring petrol RON 95 to biofuel E5 RON 92 over the thinking the former had better quality and safety.

The price of petrol RON 95 was only VND1,530 per litre higher than biofuel E5 RON 92, which was not enough to encourage consumers to use the biofuel.

In addition, many petrol retailers now did not pay adequate attention to promoting the sale of biofuel E5 RON 92.

Saigon Petro said that it was necessary to reduce environment protection tax levied on biofuel E5 RON 92 to lower its price to promote consumption for the reason that biofuel was good for the environment. The reduction could be around VND500-VND1,000 per litre to create a price gap of around VND2,000-VND2,500 between the two types of petrol.

Measures to encourage biofuel E5 RON 92 production, distribution and consumption must also be enhanced to reduce the unnecessary use of  petrol RON 95.

The company estimated that the use of petrol RON 95 instead of biofuel E5 RON 92 caused a waste of around VND400 billion per month.

Hoang Long who bought biofuel E5 Ron 92 for his motorbike at a petrol station in Hanoi, said that he did not care what type of petrol he bought, he chose the pump with the shortest queue.

Petrol RON 92 had been eliminated from the market since the beginning of 2018 and replaced by biofuel E5 RON 92 in an effort to protect the environment.

Only petrol RON 95 and biofuel E5 RON 92 are now available in the market, at the price of VND21,230 and VND19,700 per litre, respectively.