On April 25th of this year, the Legislative Assembly approved the Transitory Provision for the Regularization of Activities established in the first paragraph of Article 5 of the Regulatory Law of Deposit, Transport and Distribution of Petroleum Products carried out by natural persons, by legislative decree number 653 and published in the official journal number 79, tome 415, on May 2, 2017.

This decree approves that all those activities that consist on the construction, remodeling or expansion of Petroleum Products Provisioning Deposits, Service Stations, including those that supply gas for motor vehicles; as well as the installation of private consumption tanks and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) filling plants, which need to be authorized by means of an agreement by the Ministry of Economy (MINEC), will have a deadline of 180 calendar days from the validity of said decree to request authorization from the MINEC, establishing also the procedure and documentation to be annexed in the application.

According to the decree, all natural or legal persons who have submitted applications after the deadline established in decree number 513 dated October 17, 2013, published in Official Gazette 214, tome 401, dated November 15, 2013, may submit a new application and any sanctioning process caused by lack of authorizations is invalid during the validity of said decree.

Therefore, those natural and legal persons who need to be regularized to comply with the requirements of the Regulatory Law of Deposit, Transportation and Distribution of Petroleum Products, have a term of 180 days as of April 28 of this year and must comply with the requirements established in said law and in decree 653 above related, to obtain the respective authorization from the MINEC, so that in that period will not be subject to penalties for non-regularization.

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