As of November 15th, RECOPE will supply stations in Guanacaste and Puntarenas with regular gasoline that has 10% ethanol. Earlier this year, RECOPE implemented a pilot plan with 30 vehicles, under the supervision of Brazilian experts.

For 6 months the cars were closely monitored, and it was determined that they suffered no damage and that no technical modifications were required for cars in Costa Rica to use ethanol. Emissions should not be a factor, since ethanol is environmentally friendly.

But overall consumption rose 3%, since Diesel rose by 8.5% and regular by 6.14%.

Consumption for August rose, leading critics to claim that the energy savings plan implemented by the government had failed. The plan’s administrator, Energy and Environment Minister Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, said that the results had to be analyzed more carefully and over a longer period of time in order to guage their effectiveness.

RECOPE’s Distribution and Marketing Manager, William Ulate, also said the statistics were misleading. “Every time there is a hike, people rush out to fill their tank. So they end up purchasing more than normal.”

The government has raised the possibility of implementing more severe measures like prohibiting the import of cars and creating wider restrictions for the circulation of vehicles in San José.