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AAP News (Australasia): Fed: Vaile won’t rule out enforcing ethanol target compliance

CANBERRA, Aug 4 AAP – Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile says he hopes it will not be necessary to enforce measures so that oil companies reach the federal government’s ethanol retail target, but has not ruled it out.

Shortly after opening Shell Australia’s 200th converted E10 (10 per cent ethanol) service station at Manuka in Canberra, Mr Vaile said the government was serious about reaching its target of a retail volume of 350 million litres of E10 fuel each year by 2010.

He said there was a range of enforcement options available to the government. “We have deliberately not gone down the mandate path because we’ve always believed that by supporting the rollout – and we’ve got programs that are helping in the production, programs that help fund the retail sector to convert service stations – to be able to accommodate the availability of a third line of fuel in those service station sites,” Mr Vaile said. “But there are the targets that the oil companies have agreed to meet each year on the pathway to 2010. “It is possible to put some compliance around those annual targets to make sure it’s not all back loaded, but it needs to be said we’re not going soft on this issue.”

Mr Vaile said it was important that the environmental benefits from the use of ethanol – a non-fossil fuel – were realised. He conceded it was debatable whether the target would be achieved. “Up until now, a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of the product that has gone out has been undertaken by the independent networks,” he said. “We are now starting to see, with the rollout and the opening up of a network of sites by Coles Express and Shell, and we understand that BP have got a network coming on stream, and Caltex, it’s about to start happening. “We’ve only got two years to go, so we’ve got to keep them focused on the fact that we are serious about achieving this target.” AAP dep/sjk/cdh

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