The Petroleum Administration Act (henceforth the Act) is being instituted to promote the sound development of the oil industry, to safeguard the production and sales of oil, to ensure the steady supply of oil, to enhance people's livelihoods, and to develop the national economy while at the same time give equal consideration to environmental protection.

Definitions of terms used in the Act:
1. Oil: Refers to petroleum crude oil, bituminous crude oil, and petroleum products.
2. Petroleum crude oil: Refers to naturally occurring crude oil that is mixtures of hydrocarbon compounds that contain mainly paraffin hydrocarbon, cycloparafin hydrocarbon, and aromatic hydrocarbon.
3. Bituminous crude oil: Refers to crude oil extracted from bituminous minerals.
4. Petroleum products: Refers to products that are used primarily as energy and obtained from oil through the process of distillation, refining, or blending or production with using hydrocarbon as raw materials that designated by central competent authority. These include gasoline, diesel oil, kerosene, naphtha, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), jet fuel, and fuel oil.
5. Renewable oil products: It indicated the reusing materials that recycled from the domestic waste or others according to the environmental protection law, after processing to produce the petroleum materials and used as fuel.
6.Oil refinery: Refers to a business that uses oil as its raw material to engage in the manufacture of petroleum products through the process of distillation, refining, or blending.
7. Gasoline station: Refers to a business place with an oil storage facility and metered fuel-servicing equipment installed so that gasoline or diesel oil can be supplied for use in motor vehicles, machinery, and other purposes.
8. LPG station: Refers to a business place with a gas storage facility and metered gas-servicing equipment installed so that the built-in container of a vehicle can be filled with LPG.
9. Fishing boat filling station: Refers to a business place with an oil storage facility and flow meters installed so that the built-in oil tank of a fishing boat can be filled with fuel.
10. Oil storage facility: Refers to a structure specifically for oil storage that has both a top lid and walls and is situated either above or below ground. It must also have a use permit pursuant to the provisions stipulated in the Building Law. For structures that do not fall under the provisions of the Building Law where a use permit applies, the approval of the competent authorities that have jurisdiction over the business is required.
11. Suppliers of LPG: Refers to oil refineries, oil importers, oil exporters, LPG stations, LPG wholesale distribution industries, LPG packing industries, and LPG retailers.
12. LPG wholesale distribution industries: Refers to the industries wholesale LPG, which is obtained from oil refineries and oil importers, to LPG packing industries.
13. LPG packing industries: Refers to the industries that have a gas storage facility and packing equipments, filling gas into LPG gas cylinders.
14. LPG retailers: Refers to the sale of LPG cylinders to users.
The criteria for petroleum products mentioned in Items 1, 4, and 6 of the preceding paragraph will be promulgated by the central competent authority after conferring with the agencies concerned.

The competent authorities referred to in the Act are the Ministry of Economic Affairs on the central level, the municipal governments on the special municipality level (Taipei and Kaohsuing), the county, or city governments on the county or city levels.