Geez, California's ARCO Diesel Fuel looks like you could run any Pump-Duse on it!
ARCO OFFERS CLEANER BURNING DIESEL
FUEL PRIOR TO CARB MANDATE; AVAILABLE
NOW FOR RETROFITTED SOUTHLAND URBAN
MUNICIPAL FLEETS
LOS ANGELES -ARCO will begin offering a cleaner
burning diesel fuel, well in advance of
anticipated regulatory requirements, aimed
specifically at helping reduce soot emissions
from urban municipal fleets in Southern
California.
The new ultra low sulfur diesel fuel will be
available immediately, upon request, to
operators of urban municipal fleets that have
been retrofitted with catalytic exhaust control
technology. ARCO's announcement is being made
simultaneously with the California Air Resources
Board's (CARB) staff proposal requiring
significantly lower emissions from urban buses,
but prior to finalization of new Public Transit Bus
Fleet Rules and Urban Bus Engine Standards,
which are intended to help ensure even better air
quality throughout the state.
ARCO's new fuel will have a maximum sulfur
content of 15 parts per million (ppm), while the
sulfur content of diesel fuel currently used in
California (CARB diesel) is almost 10-times
greater at an average of 120 ppm, with a
maximum sulfur level of 500 ppm. Diesel fuel
with an average sulfur content level of 340 ppm,
and a maximum of 500 ppm, is used in other
parts of the country.
The lower the sulfur content the greater the
benefit in reducing air pollution and toxic
emissions, according to studies and air quality
regulators, because low sulfur content enables
catalytic exhaust after-treatment on diesel
engines.
ARCO's new low sulfur fuel, which will be
manufactured exclusively for Southern California
at the company's Los Angeles Refinery (LAR) in
Carson, is the second significant diesel fuel
announcement ARCO has made this year. Earlier,
the company announced plans to test a next
generation EC- (Emission Control) Diesel fuel,
which will continue through 2000.
The company chose to use this new low sulfur
diesel in complying with the more stringent
pending regulatory requirements, instead of its
revolutionary EC-Diesel, because it can be
produced immediately in sufficient volumes to
meet the anticipated demand while still being
cost effective.
"ARCO, in supporting CARB's efforts, continues to
see diesel as a viable fuel of the future, and is
committed to providing a diesel product in
Southern California that will enable engine and
bus manufacturers to meet the new, very tight
emission standards that will likely be set next
year," said Roger Truitt, president of ARCO
Products Company, the marketing, refining and
marine division of ARCO.
"These new CARB standards will require both
diesel and alternatively-fueled buses to meet the
same emission standards for NOx (Nitrogen
Oxide) and particulates (soot), and we are
confident our new diesel fuels will provide
immediate and significant reduction."
Truitt also said the company hopes to ultimately
make this low sulfur diesel available to all urban
fleet customers, not just municipal fleets, and
believes that CARB is taking the right approach
in keeping diesel as one of the significant fuels
of the future. ARCO, which supplies about 20
percent of the state's 220,000-barrel daily
production of diesel through its distributors,
intends to produce and distribute its new fuel at
competitive prices.
While it is difficult to predict the retail price of
ARCO's new diesel, CARB has estimated that it
expects low sulfur fuel to cost approximately
5-cents a gallon more than current CARB diesel.
ARCO will also continue making CARB diesel fuel
available for the more than 700,000
diesel-powered vehicles on the road in California
which will not benefit from use of low sulfur fuel
because they are not equipped with catalytic
exhaust after-treatment devices.
Diesel fuel has been increasingly scrutinized by
air quality advocates, but ARCO believes its new
low sulfur fuel, working with exhaust
after-treatment, will be comparable to, or better
than alternative fuels, in reducing emissions
levels resulting in healthier air quality.
"Producing low sulfur diesel fuel is an important
part of providing the mix of fuels and
technologies necessary to guarantee clean and
healthy air for California," said Sandra Spelliscy,
general counsel for the Planning and
Conservation League, a statewide environmental
group. "The immediate availability of this fuel is
a plus for urban bus fleets, and the urban
populations they serve."
Others intimately involved in the utilization and
development of ARCO's new fuel, like
manufacturers of catalyst-based exhaust control
technologies, have hailed the fuel advancement.
A number of manufacturers have expressed
excitement in CARB's recognition that a cleaner
burning diesel, coupled with catalytic
after-treatment in the form of controls and
filters, yields emission results as good as
Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and other
alternate fuels, with no decrease in performance.
Bruce Bertelsen, executive director of the
Manufacturers of Emission Controls Association
(MECA), praised ARCO for its leadership in
introducing a low sulfur diesel fuel. "Achieving
the goal of a truly clean diesel engine will
require a 'systems' approach combining advanced
diesel engine designs, advanced exhaust control
technologies, and low sulfur fuel."
"ARCO's low sulfur fuel will play a critical role in
enabling exhaust control technology to be fully
optimized for maximum emission reductions,"
Bertelsen said.
"We are pleased to see ARCO making a
commitment to produce a lower sulfur diesel
fuel," said Pat Butters, transit maintenance
manager of Santa Monica Big Blue Bus. "This
gives us a realistic and obtainable means of
lowering emissions on our existing fleet."
Most diesel fuel end-users agree that the
dramatically lower cost of retrofitting their
existing fleets with catalytic devices needed to
utilize low sulfur diesel is a significant
advantage over having to purchasing new
equipment or engines that run on alternative
fuels.
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit
Authority's (MTA) head of transit operations, Tom
Conner said: "The MTA is interested in testing
ARCO's new diesel fuel so that we can report to
our Board whether it will further our efforts to
reduce emissions from transit vehicles...as the
agency prepares to replace the remainder of its
fleet with new, low emission buses, it is
interested in evaluating cost effective
alternatives."
These new clean diesels have been developed at
ARCO's Engineering & Technology Center in
Anaheim, and LAR, where a team of engineers
and scientists continually seek workable
solutions to challenging air quality issues.
ARCO is an industry leader in cleaner fuel
development with a history of innovation in
transportation fuels. It started producing
unleaded gasoline in 1970, four years before
catalytic converters were mandated in California.
In 1989 it introduced EC-1 which significantly
reduced air pollution from pre-1975 cars and
pre-1980 trucks. A new EC Premium followed this
advance in 1990. ARCO subsequently took the
lead in 1996 in bringing to the market CARB
Phase II gasoline, the cleanest burning gasoline
in the world.
ARCO Products Company is a division of ARCO
(NYSE:ARC), a worldwide producer, refiner and
marketer of petroleum products, based in Los
Angeles.
[This message has been edited by SkyPup (edited April 24, 2000).]