The roll-out of palm oil-based B5 biodiesel for the central region continued today, with the introduction of the fuel for the Federal Territory. The event to mark the introduction was held at a BHPetrol station in Jalan Kuching this morning, and present at proceedings was Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Tan Sri Bernard Dompok, who officially launched the fuel at the retail level in June, as scheduled.

Kuala Lumpur is the fourth location in the central region to introduce B5; Putrajaya kicked the programme off on June 1, followed by Malacca and Negeri Sembilan. The KL roll-out is just over a month later than planned – B5 was slated to be introduced here on September 1. Selangor is the next on the list, on October 1, according to the schedule.

The B5 programme for KL will see B5 being supplied by 247 stations, and through this, 890 tonnes or 1.03 million litres of palm-oil biodiesel will be used per month, which will contribute to saving the connsumption of nearly 12.4 million litres of fossil-based diesel a year in KL.

Priced at the equivalent of petroleum diesel, at RM1.80 per litre, Dompok said that the government would continue to keep the price of B5 as such, and absorb the differences. He also said that full B5 supply nationwide would be implemented in 2013 at the earliest.

Meanwhile, BHPetrol said that B5 is available in its 35 stations in KL, and currently has around 60 stations offering the fuel in the central region.

Seems that the datasheet listing the properties of petroleum diesel and B5 biodiesel from last week’s launch of the B5 biodiesel programme in Putrajaya wasn’t quite up to date. With regards to certain aspects, specifically that of the sulphur content, Paul noticed the numbers didn’t quite add up, so having asked around, we’ve managed some answers.

Apparently, the column listing the properties of the total sulphur content for both in a photo recapture I took was from a booklet published by the Malaysian Palm Oil Board in August 2009 (third edition). The datasheet listed the sulphur content of B5 as 0.26% and Malaysian petroleum diesel as 0.28%, essentially 2,600 and 2,800 ppm, which met the MS123:1993 0.50% maximum sulphur content requirement which was still in effect at the time of printing.

According to Puah Chiew Wei, research officer in the engineering & processing research division at the MPOB, the current sulphur content of 100% pure palm biodiesel is <10 ppm (<0.001%) which meets the stringent requirements of MS2008:2008 and EN14214:2008.

Malaysian petroleum diesel currently has a sulphur content of 300 to 400 ppm (0.03 to 0.04%). Puah adds that the low sulphur palm biodiesel thus contributes to reduction of sulphur content in B5, and as such, B5 meets the requirement of maximum sulphur content of 0.05% as stipulated under MS123:2005.

Apparently again, the booklet wasn’t officially distributed at the launch, but it was inserted into the press kit bag anyway by someone who saw fit to do so – time to print an updated booklet, perhaps?

The palm oil-based B5 biodiesel programme began as scheduled today – the fuel was officially launched by Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Tan Sri Bernard Dompok at the Petronas station in Precinct 9D in Putrajaya earlier this evening.

With the introduction, Malaysia becomes the second country to implement the use of B5 (Indonesia has been using it since 2006 in selected cities and provinces), which is of course higher than the mandatory B2 (2%) blend in Thailand started in April 2008 and the B1 mandated in the Philippines, which was introduced in May 2007.

It’s actually been around for a while, B5 has – since February 2009, no less than 3,900 vehicles from various government agencies such as DBKL and the Armed Forces have been conducting test usage of the fuel, with no adverse effects reported to date.

From today, however, it is available at point of retail: B5 biodiesel will be sold at the six petrol stations – five from Petronas and one from Shell – located in Putrajaya, the first location in the Central Region to deploy the fuel. It is priced at the equivalent of petroleum diesel, at RM1.80 per litre.

As it goes along, the fuel will be made available in other locations in the Central Region. The next to launch B5 will be Malacca on July 1, followed by Negeri Sembilan on August 1. Stations in Kuala Lumpur will begin selling B5 on September 1, and then Selangor will follow suit on October 1. The implementation of B5 in other regions in the Peninsular as well as in Sabah and Sarawak as part of the planned nationwide coverage will be announced in due time.

At this initial stage, the deployment of B5 will cover the land transport sector, which encompasses private cars, those in the civil service as well as commercial vehicles. From November 1, B5 will begin to cover the industrial and fisheries sectors as well.

To ensure the success of the programme, the government, through the Malaysian Palm Oil Board, has allocated a sum of RM43.1 million to finance the development of in-line blending facilities at six petroleum depots in the Central Region.

The facilities are owned by five oil companies, namely Petronas Dagangan, Shell Malaysia Trading, Esso Malaysia, Chevron Malaysia and Boustead Petroleum Marketing. Three of these depots are located in Selangor – two in Port Klang and the Klang Valley Distribution Terminal in Dengkil. Two other depots are located in Port Dickson, and the last is at Tangga Batu in Malacca.

The notes provided at the launch had a comparative table of the fuel properties of the MS2008 compliant B5 palm biodiesel and petroleum diesel in the country, as represented in the photo recapture below.

Click to enlarge

As far as performance goes, engine performance aspects of the B5 palm biodiesel (methyl esters) blend compared to petroleum diesel are a decrease in ignition delay (due to a presence of oxygen), lower smoke emission and volatility levels for B5.

It also has a slightly higher brake specific fuel consumption and NOx emission (which is still well below the regulated level) and exhibits a comparable thermal efficiency and the same combustion pressure patterns – with no adverse effect in terms of knocking – as petroleum diesel. It does however offer slightly lower brake power, due to a low calorific value.

Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said today that the government will not increase the price of RON95 petrol, diesel and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for now. He however did not mention for how long the government would maintain current prices, when probed by reporters

However, with the subsidy for petroleum products set to baloon to a massive RM18 billion this year, it’s just a matter of time before pump prices go up. The current price of RON95 petrol is RM1.90 per litre, as opposed to RON97′s RM2.90 per litre after the recent round of revision. The government has already announced that super subsidy diesel for commercial vehicles will end effective 1 June.

“This decision was made because the government is concerned for the people’s welfare. But at the same time, the government will continue studying subsidy rationalisation as a whole following the increase of fuel and gas prices in the global market,” Ismail Sabri told reporters today.

The price of RON 95 petrol, along with the pricing of all other petroleum products, will be reviewed in June, according to Domestic Trade, Cooperative and Consumerism Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob. He told reporters yesterday that the finance ministry and Pemandu (Performance Management & Delivery Unit) would be among those which would determine if the prices should be maintained or increased.

Ismail Sabri added that according to Pemandu’s subsidy rationalisation plan, there would be a revision every six months for subsidies on all products, saying that diesel, LPG and RON95 prices were revised last December and therefore a revision was now due.

“This means that a mid-year revision will be carried out this month or early June. I can’t say what will happen, but the revision will take place and the government’s subsidy burden is high,” he told reporters, who posed the question about the status of RON 95 pricing following the increase of RON 97 recently to RM2.90.

He said that although he had previously stated that petrol prices would not go up at the moment, that wasn’t a guarantee that petrol prices would stay the same forever, since the government was already burdened with subsidies for petroleum products.

“Last year, the government’s subsidy for petroleum products was RM8bil when world fuel prices shot up, and we don’t see signs that it will drop. If this continues, the government will bear RM18bil in subsidies this year, an increase of RM10bil,” he stated, adding that if subsidies were reduced, the RM10bil could be used to build more schools, housing projects, educational aid and village roads.