At present, oil companies who import petroleum and petroleum products deposit the same in the warehouse (bonded tanks) at shore or refinery and thereafter they pay duty. Sometimes they transfer the warehoused goods from one warehouse to another without payment of duty under Section 67 of the Customs Act, 1962 with the permission of proper officer of customs and then pay duty at the destination.

2. It has been decided to withdraw this facility of transfer of petroleum products without payment of customs duty from the warehouse at the port of import to inland warehouses. Section 46 of the Customs Act, 1962, provides for the importer to file the Bill of Entry for home consumption and clear the goods on payment of duty or to file Into-Bond Bill of Entry and warehouse the goods and clear them subsequently after payment of duty. Henceforth, the warehousing facility for petroleum products would be available only at the port of import, and no removal to inland bonded warehouses without payment of customs duty will be allowed.

3. The proper officer of customs in the field should ensure that the petroleum products lying in warehouses at places in the hinterland other than the ports are de-bonded from the customs warehouses and duty realized immediately.

4. It may, however, be noted that nothing in the above instructions would apply to goods which are exempted from payment of customs duty in terms of customs notifications or to goods imported by EOUs, STPs, EHTPs and SEZs.

5. The Chief Commissioners and Commissioners of Customs and Central Excise are requested to ensure that there is no hold-up of clearances of petroleum products or any disruption caused in the movement of petroleum products as a result of the withdrawal of warehousing provisions. No precipitate action should be taken. In case of any difficulty in determining the assessable value or on any other account, refineries/warehouses may be advised to resort to provisional assessment. Difficulties/problems, if any, that are noticed in the implementation of “switch over” may be examined on an urgent basis by the Chief Commissioners and the same may be brought to the notice of Board immediately along with views and suggestions.

6. These instructions would come into force w.e.f. the midnight of 15.02.2005.

7. Hindi version will follow.

Yours faithfully,

Sd/-
(S.M. AKHTER)
Under Secretary to the Govt. of India

F.No. 473/09/2004-LC