AN ENERGY official yesterday affirmed Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp.’s claims that its contested imports are raw materials, hinting support for the oil refiner against a technical smuggling case pending in the courts.
“These are interim products. More processing is needed for interim products to produce finished products,” Zenaida Y. Monsada, director of the oil management bureau, said in a chance interview, referring to catalytic cracked gasoline Shell brought in from 2004 to 2009.
The Customs bureau claims the importations were final products and thus subject to higher tax rates. In 2009, Customs threatened to seize Shell imports, averted after the oil firm put up a P7-billion bond early this year pending a final court ruling.
This is different from the P24-billion technical smuggling case Customs later filed, this time claiming that shipments from 2005 to 2009 had been misdeclared as tetra-propylene.
Ms. Monsada added that department’s position as early as 2003 is that catalytic cracked gasoline (CCG) and light catalytic cracked gasoline (LCCG) products are raw materials.
In a related development, Shell yesterday commented on yet another smuggling accusation levelled against it.
Customs last month asked the firm to settle about P1.6 billion in taxes after claiming that some shipments classified as blending components were gasoline.
“Alkylate is not a finished product but an intermediate product…” Shell said.
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Source: Business World, Aug. 22, 2011
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