First of all, thanks to Mat Kamil Awang for the pointer to these documents. The source for the data I am going to use in this article is from a Japanese site hosting presentations from the 4th Asian Petroleum Technology Symposium. This particular presentation is entitled “Clean Fuels for A Clean Malaysian Environment”, by Harlina Firdaus Marzuki and Fazil Mat Isa of PETRONAS Research & Scientific Services.
This is heavy reading but insightful, so bewarned! Continued after the jump…
First of all, it is very important to note how much emission control technology has evolved over the past years, now it takes 33 Euro II cars to equal the pollution produced by one 1970 car – those old cars running around sure are causing much more damage to the environment than the rest of us.
Next, let’s look at what exactly Euro II means, and the status of the fuel sold in our country compared to the Euro II and Euro IV standards. Note that these are figures back in 2004, so quality of fuel should have improved or stayed stagnant, let’s just assume they did not become worse! We begin with petrol…
Click table above for full specs.
And the following is a table with the specs of the fuel in our country. We have 6 fuels here in Malaysia, from Shell, Petronas, BHP (known as BP back in 2004), Esso-Mobil, Caltex, as well as ProJet. The following table lists the fuel as letters from A to E, and I do not know which alphabet represents which fuel.
As you can see, for our local petrol, it appears that 2 out of 6 already complies to the Euro II specifications: Fuel B and D. It’s just too bad we have no idea which petrol is which, as it’s not revealed in the presentation. The presentation also noted that actually 3 out of 6 fuels are Euro II compliant, so I assume Fuel E’s slightly higher than 5% spec Benzene content is excusable – Fuel E’s Benzene content is 5.07%. Does that 0.07% matter? I’m not an oil and gas person, I don’t know.
Fuel C and F are up to standards except for Reid Vapour Pressure which has a max threshold of 65 kPa for Euro II. Fuel A fails both the Reid Vapour Pressure and Benzene Content requirement. And check this out – all petrols have sulphur content way below the Euro II requirements.
Something else interesting to note – all of the fuel’s octane rating varies and Fuel D’s octane is the highest and closest to RON98 at 97.7 octane. Fuel E has the lowest octane rating, at 96.4 it is even lower than the RON97 it advertises! Once again, I just wish I knew which fuel comes from which company.
Now we have a look at diesel. Here is the Euro II and Euro IV specifications for diesel. The information is somewhat incomplete, missing specification requirements for Distillation T90 as well as density in kg/L.
Click table above for full specs.
And here is our local diesel quality. Due to the missing info in the specs table, we cannot see if the diesel sold here on Malaysian shores comply with density and Distillation T90.
It seems all of the diesel sold locally here in Malaysia fail the Euro II Distillation T95 requirements which calls for a maximum temperature of 370 degrees celcius. The lowest would be Fuel D at 370.9 degrees Celcius. 5 out of 6 of the diesel fuel here complies with Euro II’s sulphur ppm rating of a maximum of 500ppm, except for Fuel A which is an astronomical 2800ppm, only complying with the current MS123 diesel standard which calls for maximum sulphur of 3000ppm.
Fuel A seems to be the worst diesel around, and it also failed the Euro II standards for petrol! Fuel D seems to have the best fuel around, good diesel fuel with the lowest sulphur content, having the closest Distillation T95 rating to compliance for diesel, as well as petrol that complies with Euro II standards and also having the highest octane number! So yeah, I would advise you to avoid Fuel A and go with Fuel D all the time, but once again, we don’t know which fuel belongs to which company!
This data was based on the quality of fuel back in 2004, and it’s been 3 years now. Optimistically, fuel standards could have already been raised progressively since then – otherwise we assume it’s still the same. Realistically, standards could not have dropped. It looks like diesel seems to need the most work to comply with Euro II standards here in Malaysia. The presentation says the fuel refineries would need the installation of hardware called a Distillate HydroTreater unit, which I don’t know what it is, but it sounds expensive.
Coming March 31st 2007 where Euro II standards-compliant fuel have to be sold at all pumps – assuming it is not delayed – I do not see much reason to warrant an increase in petrol price, perhaps diesel. It is reported that the extra refinery for the Euro II fuel would cost between 3-4 sen per litre. But let’s wait and see.
For the moment, now we have the answers to that age-old question – are all petrols the same? No, they most definitely are not the same, and this isn’t even considering the additives yet.
Last but not least, here is a link to the source document. I also have it mirrored here.
Related Posts:
Government sets new Euro II standard for fuel.
Looking to sell your car? Sell it with Carro.
Heavy reading ..
but great stuff.
hardcore reading material. worthwhile info though.
is this among the reason why we aren't seeing more latest diesel spec'd car models being brought in?
I heard the petrol price is rising RM0.04 soon ?
I thought i have read this report for years. Or is it an updated version for 2006? (i doubt it however)
Confirm, the data is the same old data that i have read before. Or have i missed any updated (2005-6) data?
why don't we move to Euro4 at once? the gap of max sulfur content between Euro2 and Euro4 is too big (500 ppm vs 50ppm). For cleaner environment, Euro4 should be made compliant to all diesel vehicles. Tax reduction should also be given to purchase of new heavy vehicles especially the euro ones (MAN, Scania & Renault). Its worse here since most of heavy lorries on the road are more than 10 years old, somemore got 20+ year old lorries in rural towns. Those engines are not even euro2 compliant and somemore the exhaust smoke is worse. How to save the environment when most heavy lorries exhales black toxic smoke around us?
The government should concentrate on the enforcement of the emmission law than the hiking of petrol price.
Let me quote mr. Roland Hass of GTZ. In 2004 he said "Another example is cars.There are no prototype tests in which new models are thoroughly inspected by an independent authority before they are approved for the market.“In other words, the companies operating here give themselves their
own stamp of approval that their new model fulfils the legal standards,†says Haas.Only the commercially used diesel vehicles are required to have exhaust gas inspections twice a year. And here, they can fiddle. In the case of cars, the regulations only apply to new vehicles. But, for example, even the new but technically rather obsolete Proton “Sagaâ€,Malaysia’s VW Beetle, still roars through the streets of the city without being forced to comply with the standards for newly developed vehicles"
The Government should strictly impose the law on automobile companies to supply cars with euro II or euro IV compliance engines.
"Something else interesting to note – all of the fuel’s octane rating varies and Fuel D’s octane is the highest and closest to RON98 at 97.7 octane. Fuel E has the lowest octane rating, at 96.4 it is even lower than the RON97 it advertises! Once again, I just wish I knew which fuel comes from which company."
Well does the higher octane burns faster or slower?? If it does, then we can actually guess one out of the 6 in the list :P
"Something else interesting to note – all of the fuel’s octane rating varies and Fuel D’s octane is the highest and closest to RON98 at 97.7 octane. Fuel E has the lowest octane rating, at 96.4 it is even lower than the RON97 it advertises! Once again, I just wish I knew which fuel comes from which company."
Well does the higher octane burns faster or slower?? If it does, then we can actually guess one out of the 6 in the list :P if not 2
why not jump to current Euro4 standard? If I were a foreigner reading newspaper, I would joke myself about the current fuel quality malaysia is using
If you look at the petronas roadmap in the document, Euro IV will be introduced in 2010.
Dogster: higher octane has higher resistance to knocking (premature ignition), which allows you to have a leaner air-fuel mixture, or more advanced ignition timing, or a higher compression ratio.
Paul, you mispell Caltex.
do u guys know they actually exchange/shares their fuel when they running out of stock, especially diesel
Paul thanks for posting this informative article. I hope this spurs more researchers to come forward and share/publish their findings on widely read sites such as this one.
This means that:
a) Fuel companies should be able to upgrade to EURO4 much more easily than before, without extra cost incurred at the retail side.
b) EURO4 fuel means we can enjoy the latest batch of Diesels from European markets as manufacturers can introduce these models without any service/maintenance problems. Good low down torque means you don't have to rev past 2000-2500 to get to work and back everyday, meaning fuel sipping commuting! Can save $$$.
c) Since the barrel prices for oil have fallen back to US$60, but retail prices in Malaysia remain hiked up (the recent sudden 19% increase), the oil companies can switch to EURO4 gratis if they wanted to!
d) Another thought. We the people have to bear the cost of all these emission laws, but what about factories, shipping (diesels) and aviation – no such requirements for them right?
e) I hope your article spurs on more people to ask questions – and that fuel companies start publishing and/or displaying fuel information at their stations!! Readers – please write in, and Paul – please post the e-mail addresses and toll free customer service numbers for the fuel companies in Malaysia so all the readers can write/call and start asking questions. Be an intelligent consumer!
All we need to know is who's Fuel D. Can someone working in D verify which company this is? Your company will get a lot more users based on the stats above. ;-)
These Stats are from 2004, and we are now in 2007, since 2004, almost all the petrol companies release new version of fuel, such as Primax 3, etc… and so, there is no point knowing which companies does ABCD represents, cause at the end of the day, the formulas have changed, and any other companies may be bad then may be the leader today…
If some gas stations are already compliant, they should proudly publicise their fuel standard. Atleast consumers will know which fuel gives them cleaner and efficient fuel. So far the only hype they pull is fuel economy. BTW Paul, have you consider making a write up comparison on the fuel economy in Malaysia? Every company claims that they offer more mileage, why not put it to the test?
the RVP (Reid Vapour Pressure) might not be the criteria that fails the Euro II thing…..the higher RVP simply means the fuel is more volatile (easier to evaporate) under same conditions.
that said…its the sulphur content that does the most damage…..now ask yourself this……where’s our low sulphur crude oil we get offshore ah??
dont pump petroNUS laa…
everytime price increase.. he said no profit.. then year end dec 2008 announce billions of profit. BS
Actually A-F company are following the alphabet:-
A BHP
B Caltex
C Esso Mobil
D Petronas
E Projet
F Shell
WMs5555, could you please provide evidence/reference for the above information you shared? thanks in advance
Actually A-F company are following the alphabet:-
A BHP
B Caltex
C Esso Mobil
D Petronas
E Projet
F Shell
ARE YOU SURE? What is your source?
the data provided is pre-euro 2M implementation, so it is not valid at all. and as for RVP, even though the Euro 2M spec specified max 65 kPa, oil companies were given a waiver of max 70 kPa by DOE.
hello,
can I have training in Malaysia about fuel and fuel stations?
I like, and I want to get training there if there is any course.