Some of you who occasionally pump Shell V-Power Racing may have suddenly discovered your regular Shell Station has stopped offering it. I know I was surprised to find it gone at the Shell Station after the 50 sen toll in Cheras. The red pump had become the usual RON97 version of Shell Super while the green pump is now RON95.

According to Shell, the official reason for phasing out V-Power Racing for some stations is they need to optimize selected stations in their network and increase capacity for RON95 to meet customer demand. V-Power Racing was never available at all stations in the first place – the Taman Connaught Shell that used to be a Projet had always had RON92 and RON97.

Anyway I found this list of stations where it is still offered on their site. Click the icon at the top right of the document viewer to read the tables in a larger view.

Click image to view presentation, navigate with next/prev buttons

Chevron, the company which operates Caltex stations here in Malaysia, has released some information to help consumers with the upcoming switch to a RON95 and RON97 fuel offering at the pumps from the present RON92 and RON97 offering.

The government plans to hike up the price of RON97, and price the new RON95 between current RON92 and RON97 prices. We’ve talked about RON95 and octane before a few times in the past, but here’s some from the horse’s mouth.

The presentation deck is actually quite interesting as it explain the differences between RON, MON, octane satisfaction requirement survey results in countries that offer a wider range of fuel octanes on sale compared to Malaysia, and other interesting bits such as the percentage of sales of each octane grade in various other countries.

Click the image above to view a presentation about RON and fuels in general (use the prev and next buttons to cycle through the slides), or look after the jump for a FAQ as well as thumbnails of all the slides.
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So, has anyone tried out the RON95 fuel with their cars at the stations in Putrajaya yet? I have yet to try it out on my cars. I know some of you who have been happily using RON92 perfectly all this while must be a little miffed by having to pay a little more money unnecessarily for a better octane grade that you don’t require. But the introduction of RON95 replacing RON92 will be beneficial for those who have cars that support RON95 and have so far been paying a small premium for the jump between 95 and 97.

First of all I think it’s necessarily to clear some misconceptions between the levels of fuel grades available in Malaysia. First of all, all petrol sold at consumer pumps in Malaysia are unleaded. This includes the current RON92, and the upcoming RON95. There are only a few stations that sell RON92 in Malaysia due to low demand. Some petrol stations like Shell sell Shell Regular RON92 at some stations which are usually stations that used to be Projet stations in the past. These stations do not sell V-Power. Only some Petronas stations sell a “red” Prima 92 alongside their Primax 3 which is RON97. The problem is with the usage of a red instead of green colour for RON92 fuel, which leads consumers to believe RON92 is leaded fuel. Stations like BHPetrol and Caltex sell RON92 and RON97 consistently at every station.

Secondly, fuel octane does not necessarily represent fuel quality. All petrol come from the same if not similiar base supply. Most of the time it is the additive package that is mixed together with the fuel that determines whether fuel performs better than another. Shell Super and Shell V-Power Racing are both RON97, but V-Power Racing uses a different additive mix. Companies like BHPetrol and Caltex use identical additive packages for both their RON92 and RON97 products, and furthermore BHPetrol actually mixes 800ppm which is double the recommended amount of additives of 400ppm by their supplier into their fuel.

These additive packages can contain ingredients such as detergents to clean your engine, or friction modifiers to help reduce friction between the various engine components that are being flung around at such high speeds and temperatures.

What you need to do is find out whether your car can run on RON95 or not. This information should be available in your car’s manual or on a sticker near your fuel flap. I wrote to Proton and they claim that all Proton cars should be able to run fine on RON95 except some older carburetor cars, which need an ignition timing adjustment fix. You may want to contact your Proton service center to see if they can do this adjustment for you before you start to fill up with RON95. This is so that you can avoid any damage no matter how little or significant caused by knocking due to insufficient fuel octane.

And then of course there will be some of you who will decide to continue to use the more expensive RON97. In fact some companies which offer both a regular and premium RON97 product now may decide to discontinue the regular RON97. Which brings us to another matter…

I would like to request a favour from you dear readers – if you have the free time to answer a short survey consisting of less than 10 yes or no (including a few A or B) answers. It should not take you more than 3 minutes. The questions revolve around your thoughts on the type of fuel grades in Malaysia.

At the end of the survey you will also be asked if you would like to participate in a fuel product test, where selected respondents will be given a free tankful of a new fuel in exchange for your opinion on how the new fuel feels like. If you would like to help further, please also spread the word and let everyone know about the survey – the more data obtained, the most accurate the results will be. Thank you so much!

Despite the change of ministry leadership, the proposed restructuring of fuel grades and pricing will go ahead as scheduled. The new Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob has announced that the price of RON97 fuel will be increased to RM2.00 per litre from the 1st of September 2009 onwards, which is also the date that RON95 and Euro 2M diesel are expected to be introduced into the market. That is an RM0.20 increase from the current price. We’ve paid RM2 per litre for RON97 before as that was the price during the period of the 18th of November 2008 to the 2nd of December 2008.

It’s not known yet at the moment what the new RON95 grade fuel (which replaces RON92 in the market) will be priced at, but when Datuk Shahrir was the minister he said that RON95 would be priced at the same price as RON92, with the income from RON97′s hiked price used to subsidise RON95 fuel.

Hopefully this is still the plan. Get ready for massive jams at the petrol stations on the last day of August!

UPDATE: RON95 fuel will be replacing RON92 and will be priced at RM1.75 per litre, which is up RM0.05 from RON92 prices. Although nationwide roll-out is only expected to be fully ready by September 1st 2009, the new RON95 grade fuel is already available at 2 Petronas stations in Putrajaya. In addition, there will not be any ceiling price for RON97 fuel so petrol companies can feel free to come up with premium versions such as Shell V-Power as long as they inform the government.