Oil company Maxol says it is phasing out the sale of the ethanol-based E85 motor fuel.
It says it has made the decision because the duty derogation on the fuel runs out at the end of this year. Maxol will start phasing out the marketing of this fuel from January 1 2011.
The company said that, as a result of the Government incentive's coming to an end, E85 will become significantly more expensive at the pump than normal unleaded petrol. It added that the 'already extremely modest' demand would inevitably disappear.
Maxol started offering E85 in 2005. It says it will continued to market E5 unleaded petrol, which is 5% ethanol.
The company says that only 7,500 cars out of around two million in the Republic of Ireland are suitable to use E85. All of these can also run on normal unleaded petrol.
