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July 2010
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Over the last few years there have been consistent and increasing demands from truck makers and the road freight industry for oil companies and the government to get their respective acts together and clean up locally manufactured diesel. With the proposed building of a new refinery via state- wned PetroSA, pressure to advance in this arena is gaining momentum writes Andrew Parker. While environmental concerns are the heart of a wider, global call to reduce vehicle emissions worldwide, the problems associated with the poor quality of diesel fuel produced in South Africa and its inhibiting affect on the performance and longevity of diesel powered engines have been well documented. While some may wonder why local oil companies - on which the success or failure of the trucking industry depends - simply can’t upgrade their refineries to produce world class clean diesel, it appears it is not as simple or straight forward as one would think. Government departments, including those of mineral and energy affairs, transport and environmental affairs, together with the oil companies and their allies have, over many years, conducted in depth studies while gathering information from every conceivable stakeholder from all four corners of the world. In the meantime, the state-owned oil company, PetroSA, is on the verge of building a new refinery from scratch with the explicit purpose of producing clean diesel. According to PetroSA, the new refinery, when fully commissioned, will produce around 400 000 barrels of clean diesel a day – enough, they say, to satisfy local demand for the next 20 years. The bottom line is: Clean diesel is a pre-requisite not only to clean up the environment but to enable the trucking industry to access the latest clean burning, low emission trucks that are in general use in developed nations around the world. One thing worth putting your money on is that should PetroSA get the go-ahead to build its proposed refinery, those oil companies which are busy gathering information which will go towards defining a roadmap for future fuel specifications, will soon put the finishing touches to their deliberations and get on with those refinery upgrades we keep hearing about. Nothing works like a bit of serious competition in the marketplace to revitalise the decision makers. On top of this, Euro 2 vehicle emission standards came into effect in January this year and 2014 will see Euro 4 come into force. Taking these latter points into consideration, one can say quite confidently that the chips for refinery upgrades have been placed firmly on the table. So what does the local petroleum industry have to say about all of this?
Involve all stakeholders In a paper titled Cleaner fuels for the future – where to from here? Anton Moldan at Sapia (the South African Petroleum IndustryAssociation) says the oil companies cannot work in isolation to one another and are committed to taking a more holistic approach involving as many stakeholders as necessary.He says further that definitive fuel specifications should be officially promulgated before firm investment decisions for refinery process changes can be made. In other words, regulatory certainty is required. Moldan also notes that a practical lead time is required between the time that specification changes are promulgated and implementation takes place. A period of at least five years would now be required because of the current huge global demand for refinery upgrade resources. According to Moldan, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) will be the lead agent in this process and is expected to declare vehicles as being “controlled emitters” in terms of the Air Quality Act which will enable them to determine vehicle emission standards. The Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs (DME) will then be in a position to set fuel specification standards which will enable the achievement of the vehicle emission standards. Moldan adds that, as practised globally, some kind of incentive is required to ensure that refineries are encouraged to invest and make the changes early so that they are spread over a period of time and not done at the last minute and all at once. It still seems as if it has taken Sapia members and every other organisation and stake holder overlong to get to this point and no action has yet been taken. However, with respect, and as Moldan points out, it is critically important for South Africa to step carefully and adopt a fuel quality strategy that has been “tailormade” to suit the local air quality objectives, specific vehicle fleet, the unique fuel sources (gas-to- liquid and coal–to-liquid fuels) and the high altitude conditions. This means a review of the breakdown of the various types of vehicles presently in the South African vehicle parc together with a forecast of what the vehicle parc will look like in the future. This information will be used to forecast the fuel requirements of the vehicle parc now and into the future and also give an idea of the levels of emissions from each component of the vehicle parc. So there you have it. Really clean diesel is on its way. All the necessary stake holders are involved and committed to this end. South Africa’s trucking fraternity can rest assured that an almost pollution free future lies just over the horizon. Hooray! |
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