Slovenian government imposes biofuels component as mandatory in fossil fuels

The Slovenian government has issued a Decree ordering fuel retailers to include biofuel components in fossil fuels as of July 1 aiming to further promote green energy consumption and sustaining development.

The new obligation is for diesel fuel and 95 octane gasoline and is introduced under changes to the Decree on renewable energy sources in traffic of 2016.

The government in Ljubljana also introduced a new model to calculate the controlled prices of  fuel which will now include bio components. That part of the decree covers diesel and regular gasoline whose prices are controlled except at fuel stations along the country’s highways.

The new Regulation on the Pricing of Certain Petroleum Products envisages a change in the pricing methodology for 95-octane unleaded petrol and diesel, which is expected to be based on the movement of prices of petroleum products on the world market and the evolution of the USD / EUR rate and the movement of biofuel prices on the world market.

The OMV Slovenia company said that the price of diesel fuel at its fuel stations will be raised by 3.4 euro cents a liter to EUR 1.144 and the price of regular gasoline by 0.9 euro cents to EUR 1.225 a liter.

The government said in a statement that retailers are expected to raise fuel prices which will result in lower consumption by around 0.4 percent in the second half of this year and by around 0.5 percent in 2018. The government believes that income from fuel taxes will drop by EUR 8.5 million this year and by EUR 20 million next year.

Slovenia set the amounts of  biofuel that retailers have to secure for consumers in 2005 as well as the content of the biofuels.

According to European Commission data, of the total amount of fuel consumed in Slovenia in 2015, biofuel accounted for 7.5 percent.