The Costa Rican state refinery RECOPE had announced its plan to begin selling gasoline with ethanol by the end of May; however, this Tuesday, April 9, the Government announced it was putting the plan on hold for at least one year.

RECOPE planned to include 8% of ethanol in the current fuel formulation, the norm allows between 5% and 10%, this with the objective of reducing the CO2 emissions. The fuel was going to replace what is known in Costa Rica as Super fuel.

“By agreement between the Presidency, the Minister of Energy, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez and myself, we have decided to postpone the launch of this project, due to the general opinion that there we still must conciliate the project before its launch”, commented Alejandro Muñoz, president of RECOPE.

RECOPE will take time to inform the population of what this change implies, and it will disclose information on the technical and bibliographic studies that have been carried out so that the Ministry of Environment (MINAE) can also work on some actions and tools that strengthen the environmental protection.

RECOPE was questioned regarding the origin of the 90 thousand barrels of ethanol that it needed to purchase.

Users were also concerned about the effects that using gas with ethanol could cause to the engine of vehicles.

The Government expects to bring this project back in a year’s time.