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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Air Car from India
By Antonio C. Abaya Written on July 23, 2008 For the Standard Today, July 24 issue Car manufacturers who have been working on hydrogen-fuel-cell cars � Honda, BMW and Daimler � have promised that their models will be in mass-production in three years. Honda's entry, the FCX Clarity, was announced recently, but only 200 units are or have been fabricated, and all 200 will be shipped to Southern California, there to be rented out, not sold, at $600 a month each. If Honda et al. do not watch out, their expensive FC cars could be overtaken � in price, availability and global acceptability � by an Air Car from India. My only reader in Kazakhstan, Javier Ailes, a Filipino engineer working for an Italian firm there, sent the following email: "Mr. Abaya: As a late reaction to your column on The Hydrogen Future, I am sending you herewith a forwarded email regarding Air Car technology from Indian carmaker Tata. Something to ponder about ." I have similar literature about this Air Car, but there is a paucity of information about its technical aspects. Perhaps it is all hush-hush to protect pending patents application. But this much we know. The Air Car was developed by a French engineer, Guy Negre, for a family-owned company, MDI, in Carros in Southern France. It runs on compressed air. According to Popular Mechanics in its June 2007 issue, "Barring any last minute design changes on the way to production, the Air Car should be surprisingly practical. The $12,700 CityCAT, one of a handful of planned Air Car models, can hit 68 mph and has a range of 125 miles. It will take only a few minutes for the CityCAT to refuel at gas stations equipped with custom air compressor units. MDI says it should cost around $2 to fill the car's carbon-fiber tanks with 340 liters of air at 4350 psi. Drivers also will be able to plug into the electrical grid and use the car's built-in compressor to refill the tanks in about four hours." It sounds too good to be true. Is anyone buying? According to be BBC News of Feb. 13, 2008, another Air Car model, the OneCAT, has been licensed to the Indian industrial conglomerate, Tata Motors, which may use the same technology to fabricate its line of electric generators. The OneCAT model weighs just 350 kgs and could cost just over 2,500 British pounds, or about $5,000. "For long journeys, the compressed air driving the pistons can be boosted by a fuel burner which heats the air so it expands and increases the pressure on the pistons. The burner will use all kinds of liquid fuel. The designers say that on long journeys the car will do the equivalent of 120 mpg. In town, running on air, it will be cheaper than that." According to Popular Mechanics, "some 6,000 zero-emission Air Cars are scheduled to hit Indian streets in August of 2008." Hey, that's next week already. "Of course, the Air Car will likely never hit American shores, especially considering its all-glue construction. But that doesn't mean the major automakers can write it off as a bizarre Indian (actually, French) experiment. MDI has signed deals to bring its design to 12 more countries, including Germany, Israel and South Africa." The inventor, Guy Negre, wants his licensees to fabricate the car from 80% locally-sourced materials. And he wants each local factory to sell its own cars directly, to cut out the middleman, and he aims for one percent of global sales, or about 680,000 units per year. Terri Spall from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers says that he was interested to see how the car would fare with safety tests and how much it would appeal to a public conditioned to expect luxury fittings which add to the weight of the vehicle. Mr. Negre says there is no issue with safety. If the Air Car crashes, tanks won't shatter. They will split with a very loud bang. "The biggest risk is to the ears." At $5,000 or about P230,000 each, the OneCAT will likely be competing with the gasoline-powered Cherry car from China, and the Nano, which is also gasoline-powered and which will also be produced soon by Tata Motors.. But since it does not burn fossil fuel and does not cost an arm and a leg, the OneCAT could possibly be the clear winner as the Car of the Future, all things being equal. The recent Energy Summit of the Arroyo administration did not mention the Air Car as an alternative to fossil-fueled motor vehicles, just as it did not mention hydrogen fuel-cells or two-wheelers. It has to be the private sector that has to explore these possibilities since the bureaucracy cannot think outside the box. ***** Reactions to [email protected]. More articles in www.tapatt.org and in acabaya.blogspot.com. . To subscribe, send as blank email with the subject heading Subscribe. To unsubscribe, send a blank email with the subject heading Unsubscribe. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to "Air Car from India" More Reactions to "Two-Wheeled Alternatives" Tony on YouTube And then there is Deuterium Oil Smuggling is Rampant Mr Abaya; Interesting article, but you should visit this link before writing off America and the air car idea: http://zeropollutionmotors.us/?page_id=45 HOPEFULLY you are incorrect and Mr. Negre's vision will come to pass in North America. (It was Popular Mechanics, not I, who said that the Air Car will never hit American shores. ACA) Personally, I would love to have such a vehicle here in Canada. I am tired of driving massive steel vehicles that claim to be well built and "durable" yet they are only well marketed junk. More info: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=QmqpGZv0YT4 http://www.squidoo.com/compressed-air-car http://www.catvolution.com/ I also suggest that you watch the film "Who Killed The Electric Car" from Sony Pictures; this would be a real eye-opener for you. Small world, isn't it? Regards; Jean-Marc Blanchette, (by email), The Pas, Manitoba, Canada, July 25, 2008 (Thank you for your email and the URLs. They help clarify many of the questions that readers ask and would like to ask about the Air Car. ACA). wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Mr. Abaya, Thank you for writing the issue I brought up to you. Likewise for mentioning my name. Correction please - I am not an engineer, I am an HR staff. More power to your writing. Warmly, Javier Ailes, (by email), Atyrau, Kazakhstan, July 24, 2008 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, I read about this a month ago (see attached, with photos). It will fly here, and I agree that it should have been mentioned by either DOTC or the auto industry during the Energy Summit. Or maybe the auto makers were just trying to protect their current line pending their decision to follow the French, the Indians and others. There is some energy cost, and that is you also need some amount of electricity to run the compressors when you "refuel". Pending or aside from this, I think our local companies can also get into a small car version larger than the tricycle, with either 3 or 4 wheels and with about 200 to 1000cc engines (The 3-wheeled British Robin has about 1000cc). This can be used for getting to work by most employees, with 2 to 4 passengers. We can even eliminate the jeepney in favor of Thai Tut Tut type vehicles with about 500cc engines. Japanese motorcycle manufacturers will be more than capable of reacting to such demand, even if the starting market is here. But government must set standards, unlike the jeepney, tricycle and owner jeepney manufacturing industry which does not follow standard requirements on dimensions, lights, signals, seat belts. Chuck (Agustin), (by email), July 24, 2008 President, National Defense College of the Philippines wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya: Kumusta po? Magandang balita po ito. Malaki po ang maitutulong nito sa kalikasan upang magkaruon naman tayo ng malinis na hangin. Mabawasan naman po ang pollution sa ating kapaligiran. Sa mga tao naman po'y, maaari na silang makabili ng isang sasakyan na kaya ng kanilang budget. Earth friendly and budget friendly po. Salamat po ng marami. God bless. Ivy Almirol, (by email), July 24, 2008 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, It sounds very nice but on hat is mentioned, it cannot work. The mentioned air fill is equivalent to 12000 liter at 10 bar pressure, which is a very low pressure compared to common engines. With 500 ccm volume and just 1000 rpm, it uses already 500 liter compressed air so that 12000 liters are good only for 24 minutes. And 500 ccm at 10 bar is not much power. Then, a tank with 340 liters of air at about 340 bar, when cracking, would not make a big puff only. An oxygen tank for welding has max. 200 bar, but when cracking, it can kill nearby people by smashing the brain and destroy the lungs. A crashing tank would fill the small car with a deadly pressure for the passengers before the hull would also crack. In addition, where are the service stations that could compress about 120 cubic meter air in minutes to 4300 psi? I think, if ever such car would be produced, it will have very different technical data. Maybe another good technology, which already exists and works, is the fuel engine which substitutes up to 40% fuel with water. It works already in thousands of cars, even other kind of motors incl. generators, the conversion sets are available for between about 150 o 1000 Dollar. Some of the involved people have allegedly been killed to protect the interests of the oil industry. I do not know what is true on that, but there are several cases mentioned by the inventors. Since carmakers have already engines for normal sized cars that only use 3.to.4 liter gasoline per 100 km, a reduction of only one third, by using water as substitute, could bring demand and therefore price of oil drastically down. One advertisement about this is even at the Inquirer, named "Run your car on water". More suppliers are to be found on the Internet. Maybe you get more informed. Regards, Kurt Setschen, (by email), Switzerland, July 25, 2008 (Kurt, please look at the URLs provided by Jean-Marc Blanchette [above] and see if the technical data presented are convincing to you. I have met one Filipino inventor who claims a 30% reduction in fuel consumption with his gadget. I suggested some tests under controlled laboratory conditions. He said, yes. But that was two months ago, and I not heard from him again. ACA) wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww In this hard times of energy crises everything that sounds plausible should be tried and tested, provided one can bear the costs. About hydrogen fuel, I really believe it is possible but my skepticism was on the cost of the electrolytic cells to split the H2O until I saw Mr. Dingle do it with the ordinary car batteries. Yeah, I believe it, in simple elementary school experiments we use ordinary 9V dry cell battery to generate O2 and H2 from a beaker, though in forms of bubbles only. So I thought, it is really not that complicated. For this Air Car, my suggestion to the skeptics is to try calculate the amount of energy (electric) to compress the freely available air from the atmosphere to the desired pressure as written here. Of course, you can even use wind turbines to do the compression and it is all mechanical energy involve with combination of synergistically working gears and pistons. When in operation, a compressed air is even cheaper maintenance-wise provided it is completely filtered of impurities like particulate matters because what I am seeing is a simple engine here without those spark plugs (am I correct, that's my opinion)but with only pressurize air injected alternately to the pistons. I will surely like the car. In terms of safety issues, it will only be about the quality of cylinder that will contain the compressed air that needs to be monitored. Where I used to work before, cylinder maintenance like hydrostatic testing is done every 5 years. It should not be a problem especially in India where they have a very good supply of steel. Tata is also in steel industry so that is another advantage for them. I think I'll like that car. Edilberto Anit, (by email), July 25, 2008 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww High gas prices fuel innovations and inventions. Soon the rest of the world would no longer be at the mercy of the oil producing countries. What the Philippines could do for the time being is to convert those buses to run on compressed natural gas and reorient the Filipino way of having to walk short distances to and from buses stops to get a ride. Color coding plus higher vehicle occupancy during peak hours will help reduce gas consumption and bring more people to the work place. But more than that a greener world! Dr. Nestor Baylan, (by email), New York City, July 25, 3008 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi Tony, Thanks for the info on the Indian Air Car. This will surely be good for us for all its beneficial plus plus. Who knows, this can even replace all taxis, tricycles and the noisy contraptions in our towns and cities, especially Zamboanga. Gloria Arroyo with all her "personal and family interests" will not be happy about this one, because for sure she will not be allowed to make money at the expense of our poor people. We anticipate more news of this kind from your end. Thanks and more power to you - People's Friend. Jose Regino, (by email), Zamboanga City, July 25, 2008 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear ACA, Tata of India entered a contract in research and mass production of this car. I think this is a strategic move, I just wonder how the fossil-fueled car makers are going to react in this new event and how the giant oil companies are going to frustrate such an invention. Thanks for your response. AL Jose Leonidas, (by email), July 25, 2008 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hello sir. Just wondering whatever happened to the Filipino inventor who said we can run our vehicles just by H2O. Has he been shutdown by the Oil companies because he is bad for business or was he recruited by the auto manufacturers? His invention would be a big help to our country. Ryan P. Solomon, (by email), July 25, 2008 (I do not know what has happened to him. Another Filipino inventor claims a similar fuel-saving invention. I asked him to have his invention tested under controlled laboratory conditions. He said OK. But that was about two months ago. I have not heard from him again. ACA). wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Daniel Dingel was on the news last Wednesday, July 9, 2008, interviewed by Julius Babao of ABS-CBN TV Patrol. Dingel revealed that Cory Aquino was interested in his invention but prevented by the World Bank not to pursue the project. By this, our common sense tells us that oil producing countries and people who have business interest in petroleum suppressed this kind of technology to protect their vested interest and exploited us consumers as you can see and feel right now. If there is a problem there is a solution. And in every crisis there is an opportunity. This is man's instinct to survive. All it needs is determination and conviction. Now the time has come that even without government's support man find ways to produce water-fuel technology, and nobody can stop it. Open the attachment and you will find this technology and its website (www.runyourcarwtihwater.com) for you to search and know more of what I am talking about. Water is the most abundant renewable natural resources on Earth and its supply is infinite because it is designed this way for our existence. It is high time for the exploiters to pay for their folly. Spread the good news. Eric Fortune, (by email), July 11, 2008 (I am willing to meet with Mr. Dingel if he is willing to have his invention tested under controlled laboratory conditions. ACA) wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony: When do we buy this Tata car? Tito Osias, (by email), July 26, 2008 (You will have to ask Tata. ACA) wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww It's not really surprising that this Air Car was not mentioned during the recent Energy Summit called by Gloria Arroyo, knowing who she is and the kind of DOE secretary she has. Narciso Ner, (by email), Davao City, July 27, 2008 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww More Reactions to "Two-Wheeled Alternatives" (July 10, 2008) Dear Tony, Bravo! on your piece which I shared with my motorcycle group (which includes your fellow columnist Randy David.) Below from Francis Varela, a rider and an investment banker (President of AB Capital) who also contributes periodically in BusinessWorld's "Manindigan!" Best, Romy Bernardo, (by email), July 11, 2008 P.S. Keep up the excellent commentary which we all learn much from! Let's all buy underbones and scooters! Romy, if you have Tony Abaya's email, it may be good to point out to him that instead of encouraging motorcycles, we even discourage them. Look at how the police discriminates underbone riders. Right now, there are so many checkpoints in Metro Manila and any underbone rider who rides by is flagged down and asked to present all sort of documents. As if it's a crime to ride motorcycles! Francis Valera wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, Thank you for your very detailed reply to my comment. I was, of course, teasing, but I suspect that if you've been near the SLEX-Dona Soledad-General Santos intersection you may have seen not a few riders with baby on the handle-bars and junior clinging on behind. I am myself an old biker and had a huge Norton and side-car in the distant past, so I'm not entirely anti. I do think it would be better for all if cars and bikes could be kept apart, and special bike lanes would be a good idea. Or how about turning the old PNR line into a joint-use tram and bike route? Regards, Tom Hewitt, (by email), July 26, 2008 (The PNR tracks are being prepared for South Rail and, I'm hoping, a fast commuter rail line between Makati and Calamba-Santa Rosa. ACA) wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi, Mr. Abaya, I found your reaction to my comments on this issue quite interesting. It is not at all what I expected since I thought you were an open minded and fair person. Guess that shows you what I really know, right? I remember that I gave you at least two references on the comparison of emissions of motorcycles and cars. You still have not shown me anything, any study or whatever (based on science) that would contradict my position. I guess you would rather base your conclusions on total number of people who use motorcycles. Well guess what sir, millions of people also smoke. Are those millions of people wrong? Based on your logic, those millions can't be wrong. Do they know something you don't? I understand that you are quite frustrated about the fuel situation. Who isn't? I am just expressing my opinion that motorcycles may not be the way to go. And since you are asking what alternative I may have (no it's not an energy summit), how about tax breaks on vehicles converting to LPG or LNG? A liter of LPG is about 30% lower to half the price of gasoline, the engine life improves due to cleaner burning, and emissions are also better. And depending on the amount of the tax break and how far you drive, you can recover the cost of the conversion in maybe 18 months. In any case, please don't mind me. If you want to have your motorcycle, knock yourself out! I'm just saying that warming up one motorcyle may be equivalent to having ten cars all running at the same time in your garage (regardless of whether emissions are visible or not and that is based on SCIENCE). But hey, that's just me. Enrico D. Hidalgo, (by email), July 27, 2008 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Sear Tony, One message in your RX to two-wheelers wants that pedestrians are more punished like for jaywalking. That is OK but has a big problem. With my family living in Tagbilaran, really not a big city, one has no chance than using the road, even being a pedestrian. Too many businesses extend their display near up to the road, vendors occupy what should be the pedestrian lane, rows of motorbikes are parked where pedestrians should move, cars are parked in front of shops, banks, leaving no space for pedestrians. So, jaywalking is not always the choice of pedestrians but their only chance to move along roads. So, before consequently fining and punishing pedestrians for violating traffic rules, it has to be strictly enforced that they have their way free of any blocking occupation. Regards, Kurt Setschen, (by email), Switzerland, July 27, 2008 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony Abaya on YouTube Dear Mr. Abaya, Watching your UTube interviews (Big Picture & GNN) spurred me to email you these comments on the following topics you touched in the interviews: 1. Minimum educational requirements for political candidates, 2. Political advertisements, and 3. Change of government form. 1. Minimum educational requirement for political candidates. This is pure and unadulterated elitism. There is no evidence from our political past that would suggest this change will provide the country with better political leaders. Let us look at past Philippine presidents. Not counting Estrada, almost all of our past presidents have more than four year of college- Quirino (?) and Magsaysay being the exceptions. And, Aguinaldo if you go back to the first Philippine republic. Did the country become better or worse because of this? Let us look farther into past senators and congressmen. Except for the recent past where a handful or so of people from the entertainment/media sector of our society became members of congress, most of the past members of the Philippine congress have had college education. Again, the test question. Did the country become better or worse? If it did we won't have this discussion. (You should re-watch the program. I did not suggest college degree-requirement for candidates. My interviewer did, and I disagreed with him. What I suggested was qualifying exams for all candidates, in the way that doctors, engineers, nurses, accountants, lawyers etc are required to pass qualifying exams before they practice. ACA) 2. On political advertisements. Any attempt to curtail/restrict/limit this practice is, in my opinion, an attempt to slowly chisel away the guarantees of Sect. 4 of Art. III of the '87 Constitution, especially if the ads are on private property. Even your suggestion of giving equal time to political candidates the use of government stations is a form of limitation/restrain, although equally applied to all candidates. If the purpose is to stop the unfettered, ugly billboards, especially after elections, it can be attacked differently. The size, placement, and length of billboards posting can be regulated. This, however, would have to be done at the local level and should be uniformly applied throughout the country. In a cursory reading of Art. X of the '87 Constitution, I did see any mechanism for the local governments to do so. I am wondering if a push from the executive branch can do it. (In the Philippine context, radio and TV political ads cost millions, even billions, of pesos, which the winning candidate tries to recover many times over, either for his own profit or to reward those who financed his/her campaign with government contracts and/or immunity from prosecution. It is the biggest single source of government corruption in the Philippines. ACA) (There are regulations re the size and location of political billboards, but in the Philippine context these regulations are routinely and universally disregarded, and the Comelec does not have the personnel and the time to enforce them. ACA) 3. On election reforms. You and I are, as they say, on the same page on this. We both believe that our being an economic laggard in Southeast Asia has nothing to do with our form of government, its policies do. Also, you think the present rush to change the form of government may have a hidden agenda. Me- nothing more than to show we are doing something about it. Changing the dog's collar does not change the nature of the dog. [email protected], of Baltimore, Maryland, July 30, 2008 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww I happened to come across on You Tube your alleged interview by a certain Harry Tambuatco on some station called GNN. (Which is the station of Destiny Cable. ACA) . As usual with most Philippine TV interviewers , Harry appeared to be interviewing himself using you somewhat as a choo-wah-wah backup singer. I wanted to hear your views but most of what I got were the long-winded questions and prefaces of Tambuatco -- who often even answered his own questions !!! Amazing ! Next time , Tony , please interrupt your interviewer so that one hears more from you rather than the usual self-obsessed TV host . Dick Taylor, (by email), Aug. 01, 2008 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww And then there is Deuterium ACA, This Special Report might be of interest to you if you have not read it yet sometime in 1986 - the Deuterium Project Proposal. With the present oil price skyrocketing, now is the time to revive the project if they have not done so, yet. But I hope the Deuterium resource will not be exploited by corrupt government officials in cahoots with foreign investors or foreign government(s), for their own personal gains, alone. You might just be able to get some leads from former DTI Secretary JoeCon and Deputy Tomas Alcantara, if not from former President Cory herself, why the proposal seems to have been shelved as I heard nothing about it in the papers. Imagine the potential for the Philippines to be among the richest nations on Earth, if this went through. It could wipe out our foreign debt "overnight" so to speak. Jun Manzano, (by email), July 26, 2008 (Anyone with a background in physics or chemistry would know that this was/is a hoax. Cory Aquino and her lawyer-advisers could not have known that. Even Sen. Nene Pimentel, another lawyer, once publicly theorized that the Americans were interested in Mindanao because of our large deposits kuno of deuterium east of Surigao. (Deuterium � a heavier isotope of hydrogen - is present in seawater all over the world as deuterium oxide. Because D20 is slightly heavier than H20, it is assumed that there is more of it in deep ocean trenches such as the Philippine Deep. But no one has actually gone down 10,000 meters to scoop a liter of this heavy water. (And even if someone did, the technology for nuclear fusion reaction � in which deuterium atoms fuse into helium atoms and release energy, as in a hydrogen bomb � is decades away from being convertible for civilian use. In the meantime, hydrogen fuel cells, which use ordinary hydrogen from ordinary water or from natural gas, are already an established technology with thousands of users worldwide. (See my articles "Doomsday Scenarios" of Nov. 07, 2006, and the bottom part of "Spiritual Revolution?" of Nov. 16, 2004, archived in my website www.tapatt.org. ACA) ACA, That was a quick reply. There goes my hope for a financial breakthrough of our beloved Philippines. But thanks, just the same. Going through your website, I am amazed at the extensiveness of issues you have covered - keep up the good work. Jun Manzano, (by email), July 27, 2008 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, I admire your persistent interest in hydrogen fuel cells as source of energy and I would like to join you when you decide to see the entrepreneurs in New Jersey and another in Washington state. We, at GLOBAL FILIPINOS FOR PROGRESS have been interested in solar energy since it provides a more direct source of energy that requires no other form of energy for extraction (from the sun) unlike the hydrogen fuel cells. Bart Saucelo, (by email), South Bend, Indiana, July 22, 2008 (Solar energy already has hundreds of thousands, even millions, of end users all over the world, but these are small communities, individual homes or buildings. At its present state of technology, solar energy is still unable to power entire cities, especially if heavy duty applications, such as air conditioners and elevators, are required. ACA) wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Oil Smuggling is Rampant Tony, Fuel smuggling is rampant in the Philippines now with the rising cost of fuel. The losses in government revenue is in the billions. The vast sums the government is losing could help support its efforts to lower fuel prices. You can expect that efforts to eliminate or at least reducing fuel smuggling will be stepping on some big toes. Why the sudden declarations that smuggling is not a problem? Is it because they don't want to account for all fuel being sold, to avoid paying taxes, etc.? Increase in sales can be reported in different ways- DOE figures are never accurate. With high fuel prices smugglers would be in business because as fuel price goes up so does the VAT. The media should really investigate the problem. Here is background you may find interesting Please also note the downloads. R. Stager, (by email), Quezon City, July 18, 2008. FUEL SMUGGLING For years the Shell chairman Ed Chua claimed smuggling is the most serious problem facing the industry and something must be done. The smuggling issue has been consistantly in the papers and media for the past three years- (Sec Teves of DOF in PDI 2005 stated 10B lost per annum in tax revenue). That is why for two years the DOF and recently in January 2008, the DOE, have been discussing a solution with the oil industry centered around a national marking program (see articles below) which has proved successful in other countries. This would not only curb smuggling but it would give accurate inventory of all fuels entering the market and give more protection to the consumer on quality, health and environmental issues related to fuel (read attached paper on quantitative marking). However yesterday at a DOE oil industry meeting Shells Ed Chua declared that smuggling is not a problem anymore because "sales volume has increased due to decrease in smuggling". It is up from 500M liters to 600M per month. Petrons Director Joey Campos also stated that "illicit sources are less" which explains increase in sales. However smaller companies (members of IPPCA) which are more vulnerable to the uneven playing field created by smuggling are saying its a massive problem. In the same meeting IPPCA member Chito Villavicencio, the Chairman of Flying V, said smuggling is serious problem and action must be taken. ***** OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO All reactions to [email protected]. Tony on YouTube on www.tapatt.org. To subscribe, send a blank email with the subject heading Subscribe. To unsubscribe, send a blank email with the subject heading Unsubscribe. |