China launches cleaner gasoline standards

Reuters    Translate This Article
18 December 2013

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has launched its national 'V' standard for gasoline which will become a national requirement from Jan 2018, the government said, as it moves to clean up smoggy air in the world's largest auto market and second largest oil consumer.

That means China will catch up with Europe by the start of 2018 in both gasoline and diesel quality. The standards for the national V diesel were announced in June but with the same timeline for it to become a national requirement.

Worsening air pollution has prompted Beijing to hasten a schedule for oil companies to roll out cleaner fuel standards, a move that will require refiners to pump in billions of dollars to upgrade facilities.

'The roll-out of the standard will help upgrade China's gasoline quality and reduce pollutants from vehicles,' the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said on its website (www.aqsiq.gov.cn).

The new national V standard, similar to Euro V, will require gasoline to have a sulphur content of no more than 10 parts per million (ppm), down from 50 ppm in the national IV standard, the administration said.

China is moving to the national IV standard, similar to the Euro IV standard for gasoline nation-wide from next month, though about a dozen cities have already started using the cleaner grade V, supplied by top refiner Sinopec Corp.

The new specifications of the national V standard also require the content of manganese—another health hazard—to be cut to 0.002 gram per litre from 0.008 gram, it said.

After the new standards kick in from Jan. 1, 2018, emission from existing vehicles could be reduced by 10 to 15 percent, while emission of nitrogen oxide from new vehicles is expected to be cut by a quarter and emission of particulates by 80 percent, it added.

Once the new specifications are published, the government will allow price premiums for higher quality fuels over those of lower quality, to spur oil firms to quickly start output of cleaner fuels.

China is now enforcing the national III standard for gasoline—with sulphur content capped at 150 ppm—across the country. The national IV standard for gasoline becomes compulsory nationwide from the start of 2014, the government has said.

Sinopec has supplied gasoline of quality similar to Euro V standards to Beijing since May 2012, and to Shanghai and eight cities in the booming eastern province of Jiangsu from November, the company has said.

Its Jinling refinery in Jiangsu is now China's largest producer of Euro V gasoline, Sinopec has said.

(Reporting by Judy Hua and Chen Aizhu; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

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