Apetra Information

Belgium needs to hold these stocks following the European Directive 2009/119/EC and the International Energy Programme of the International Energy Agency . APETRA serves two goals:to guarantee the security of oil supply of Belgium;to ensure that Belgium meets its international obligations concerning the maintenance of a minimum reserve of crude oil and oil products. APETRA is established by the Law of 26th january 2006 (see here for the unofficial English translation ) with the Federal State as sole shareholder. The Law imposes strict quality and availability criteria upon the strategic oil stocks. t equally imposes frequent inspections and contains sanctions. It forms the legal backbone of APETRA and fixes its institutional clauses. APETRA started on 1st April 2007 and is since 1st April 2012 the sole manager of the Belgian strategic stocks. How much strategic reserves APETRA annually manages depends of two elements:the Belgian net imports (import - export - international bunkers - stocks changes) of oil products in the previous year, andthe amount of stocks still managed by the larger Belgian oil companies (this has been reduced to zero since 1/4/2012)Stockholding obligation