Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said over the weekend the government likely marked 100 percent of fuel oil inventory in the country since the Fuel Marking Program began in September 2019.
“I believe so… Our goal is to have 100 percent of fuel oil inventory at anytime marked,” Dominguez told reporters.
Fuel marking is mandated under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Act as a measure against smuggling of petroleum products. It is done after the taxes are paid on refined and imported gasoline, diesel and kerosene.
All import terminals and refineries of various oil companies nationwide comply with the marking requirement of the program.
Dominguez cited latest data showing that the government marked 16.43 billion liters of fuel from Sept. 4, 2019 to Dec. 8, 2020, with a total tax and duties collection of P162.79 billion.
Data showed that of the total amount, the Bureau of Customs collected P140.71 billion worth of duties and taxes for the period, while the Bureau of Internal Revenue collected P22.08 billion.
Petron Corp. accounted for 3.75 billion liters of the total for a market share of 22.82 percent. It was followed by Shell with 3.22 billion liters or 19.64 percent; Unioil, 1.72 billion liters or 10.53 percent; Seaoil, 1.37 billion liters or 8.37 percent; and Chevron, 1.31 billion liters or 8 percent.
Other fuel companies in the list are Phoenix Petroleum, 1.222 billion liters or 7.44 percent; Insular Oil, 1.114 billion liters or 6.78 percent; FilOil, 444.05 million liters or 2.7 percent; Jetti, 442.52 million liters or 2.69 percent; Total/FilOil, 396.38 million liters or 2.41 percent; Marubeni, 299.615 million liters or 1.82 percent; PTT, 289.676 million liters or 1.76 percent; and Micro Dragon, 188.244 million liters, 1.15 percent.
Those with market share of less than 1 percent are Warbucks, 160.404 million liters or 0.98 percent; GoldenShare, 158.479 million liters or 0.96 percent; Era1, 120.043 million liters or 0.73 percent; High Glory Subic, 101.87 million liters or 0.62 percent; SL Harbor, 51.1 million liters or 0.31 percent; Jadelink, 25.16 million liters or 0.15 percent; SL Gas, 18.365 million liters or 0.11 percent; Power Fill, 3.32 million liters or 0.02 percent; and Petrotrade, 350,369 liters.
Diesel had the biggest volume marked with 10.132 billion liters, followed by gasoline with 6.214 billion liters and kerosene with 87.945 million liters.
Data showed that Luzon had the largest volume of fuel marked at 12.194 billion liters, followed by Mindanao, 3.407 billion liters and the Visayas, 833.745 million liters.
Dominguez said in February the government was eyeing P20 billion in additional revenue this year from the implementation of the fuel marking program.
Previous estimates showed that fuel smuggling was costing the government P20 billion to P40 billion in foregone revenues annually.