By k on May 21, 2010

The Ministry of Energy will set a new law to regulate the import procedures of methanol as there are many unethical oil traders trying to mix the mentioned solution with oil in order to gain price advantages for commercial purpose.

The rise in oil prices has caused the problem of oil contamination nationwide as illegal oil traders tend to smuggle the low-quality illicit oil from the southern border provinces of Thailand and sell it to customers in central provinces at an exorbitant prices. The higher cost of oil is also starting to cause the oil traders to go far beyond the ethical principles when they hit on the idea in combining methanol with oil as they can shave their trading costs while earning greater profits. Oil mixed with methanol has poor quality and contains very low octane level which could shorten the vehicle engine’s lifetime. Therefore, such unethical action must be suppressed at haste in order to cut the root cause of the illegal oil trade and to get rid of the illicit oil in Thailand.

The Royal Thai Police has been trying to make greater surveillance efforts and suppress the small wayside petrol stations where the cunning oil traders have bought oil at cheaper prices and then add methanol and sell it to the public at exorbitant prices. It is also reported that such illegal action was mostly found in the North and the Northeast of Thailand.

Moreover, the Department of Energy Business also reported that there were many owners of small petrol stations mixing methanol with benzene fuel at a higher proportion as they could gain higher profits of about 20 THB per liter with the selling price at 36 THB per liter. Therefore, the more they put methanol, the more they can save cost. The selling price of the methanol currently stands at 9-11 THB per liter. The trend of such illegal action is rising among oil traders.

Mr Peerapol Sakarin, Director-General of the Department of Energy Business, said that the Ministry of Energy would discuss with the Excise Department and the Thai Customs Department to find concrete solutions on laws and regulations in order to tackle the oil contamination problem. He also stated that the methanol would be classified as products on the control list as it would be easier to be rechecked and their transport routes to be examined. He also said that currently, no agencies have taken core responsibility to monitor the import procedures of methanol so the import of the mentioned product has so far been made independently.

Methanol has been widely used in the industrial factories and is available through importation. 96% of methanol is used for industries. The remainder is found to be contaminated with oil. The oil contamination problem will also cause the government to face a loss in tax revenue collection and to spare a national budget to resolve the problem.

Mr Peerapol continued to say that the Department of Energy Business was committed to come up with stricter measures and would constantly dispatch the working teams to patrol the areas as well as to coordinate with the Royal Thai Police and the Excise Department in order to strictly regulate the illegal conduct of contaminated oil trading.

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