The history of bioethanol in Panama has been advancing in fits and starts, as if every attempt to get it going has inevitably ended in a pause. It all began during the Ricardo Martinelli administration (2009-2014). In April 2011, Law 42 set the map: it established the guidelines of the national policy on biofuels and opened the door to energy generation from biomass. Two years later, in April 2013, the law set the first mandatory step: the blending of bioethanol with gasoline throughout the national territory. The plan was gradual, almost meticulous: start with 2%, rise to 5% in 2014, to 7% in 2015, and reach 10% in 2016. Neither the Martinelli government nor that of Juan Carlos Varela (2014-2019) managed to turn the norm into a reality. Years later, in 2023, the topic returned to the center of the debate under the Laurentino Cortizo government (2019-2024). Law 355 of 2023 offered a more flexible scheme. It proposed a gradual implementation, starting with 5% in the province of Panama in April 2024, the same percentage nationwide in September, then 7% in 2025, and finally 10% in April 2026. This law also included a safeguard clause that allowed for the temporary suspension of the blend if the price of gasoline increased considerably for the end-user. However, at the end of his term in March 2024, the Cortizo government suspended the implementation until April 1, 2026. When that date approached again, the José Raúl Mulino administration (2024-2029) decided to postpone it once more, citing a lack of suitable regulatory and market conditions. But the bioethanol was back on the scene, in the form of a new bill. The project presented in 2025, in contrast, breaks with that staggered logic by directly authorizing a mandatory 10% blend, without intermediate phases. The new proposal introduces changes that mark a turn compared to what was originally proposed by Martinelli in 2011 and the reform pushed by Cortizo in 2023. The former Secretary of Energy, Juan Urriola, focuses on a point that, in his opinion, has gone unnoticed in the debate: importation. He insists on attacking the importation. He also notes that the obligation to buy national production first and the 15-year legal certainty on pricing formulas respond to attempts to secure the market and provide certainty for investments, although he warns that these mechanisms must also be evaluated with technical and fiscal rigor to avoid future distortions. The former Secretary of Energy, Víctor Urrutia, suggests that the balance of the model lies in a smart combination of national and imported production, so that the final price does not skyrocket for the consumer. He warns, however, that this scheme would only be viable if accompanied by effective price controls to ensure the impact on the market remains under control and is not passed on to the end-user.
