When approving amendments to Regulations of the Cabinet of Ministers No. 286 of 12 April 2011 “Procedures for the Ensuring and Providing of Emergency Stock Services by Merchants for the Establishment of State Petroleum Product Stocks in a Specified Amount”, the government updated the conditions for the permanent provision and availability of emergency stocks.
The CM Regulations provide that, until now, the emergency stock service could be provided by undertakings whose proposed volume of petroleum products within the procurement procedure is 1000 tonnes. Meanwhile, when implementing the procurement procedure regarding the provision of state petroleum product emergency stock service, the State Construction Control Bureaus has a duty to ensure that the volume of petroleum products stored in the territory of the Republic of Latvia is growing annually.
It was concluded in the previous tender that several more undertakings would be interested in participating in the procurement procedure for the provision of the stocks, but the minimum threshold set in the regulations was too high. Therefore, the amendments approved the proposal of the Ministry of Economics to reduce the minimum amount of state petroleum product emergency stocks from 1000 tonnes to 200 tonnes. This will not only ensure that more undertakings will be able to apply for the tender, but it will also facilitate access to the emergency stocks in the event of an announced state energy crisis or threats to the state, as the emergency stocks will be stored more in the territory of the Republic of Latvia. Last year, improvements in the procurement procedure contributed to the participation of undertakings in the procurement, resulting in already 81% of stocks being stored in the territory of Latvia this year. Stocks of petroleum products are currently stored in the amounts defined in contracts, storage of the stocks is controlled once a month in Latvia and every two months abroad.