The 10 stations were chosen on two criteria: full compliance with the 2020 upgrade plan and the five top sellers. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

Enemed has agreed to make the new “super unleaded” type of petrol available to some 60 fuel stations as it responded quickly to claims of discrimination.

The company scrapped its plans to introduce the new fuel as a pilot project and will distribute its limited stock among all those fuel stations that request to sell it.

Enemed executive chairman Kevin Chircop said when contacted that the company never intended to discriminate against anyone and had planned to introduce the new fuel to the market in a controlled fashion so as to be able to quantify the demand.

He was reacting to a story broken by the Times of Malta yesterday that petrol station owners were planning legal action claiming Enemed had abused its monopoly position when it chose only 10 of them to sell a new super unleaded type of petrol.

“The 10 stations were chosen as part of a pilot project to get the best possible market research results so Enemed could then see how much it needed to purchase to keep the supply going,” he said.

The 10 stations were chosen on the basis of two criteria: full compliance with the 2020 upgrade plan and the five top sellers. Mr Chircop said that there were five stations that fell under each of these criteria.

The chosen stations were: Gaffarena Petrol Station in Qormi; Pit Stop Service Station in Attard; Falzon Service Station, Birkirkara; France Motor Service in Fgura; VC Service Station in Għargħur; J. Micallef Service Stations in Rabat and Żejtun; Wembley Service Station in Swieqi; Lourdes Service Station in Żabbar and Arry Hompesch Service Station, also in Żabbar.

We are doing our best to shed the ‘anything goes’ attitude

He said he spoke with Carlo Cini, the petrol stations representative within the Chamber for Small and Medium Enterprises – GRTU, on January 7 informing him of the planned pilot project and the criteria.

Mr Chircop said Mr Cini was not pleased but did not raise any issues until fuel stations began complaining of discrimination just four days before the launch.

He said that Enemed had purchased enough super unleaded fuel for 10 stations but will share this among some 60 stations that wanted to offer it for sale over a staggered period of time.

In the meantime, Enemed made arrangements, with extra costs running into thousands of euros, to order more fuel and get this delivered faster than usual to be able to guarantee an uninterrupted supply.

“We are doing our best to shed the ‘anything goes’ attitude usually associated with a government entity and I think we are doing quite well. For us, it is the end-user that matters so the company changed its plans to ensure supply,” Mr Chircop said.