In a move to end an "octane war" among petroleum companies and cut unnecessary usage of high-octane gasoline in the kingdom, Thailand will impose new octane standards for all types of gasoline beginning May 1.
Thailand's new legal octane specifications for gasoline are intended to match more closely the actual engine requirements of the country's vehicles.
The revised official octane grades for Thai gasoline will be: regular gasoline, 87 research octane number (RON); mid-grade, 91 RON; and premium, 95 RON.
The new specifications are targets and will replace the required minimum octane levels that are currently in effect. The move is designed to eliminating the incentive to give away excess octane.
The range of error refiners will have to meet was unclear.
In addition to the octane changes, gasoline with soft-seat valve protection additive will no longer be sold from May 1.
Wasted quality
The octane rule revisions follow advertising campaigns by petroleum companies to promote gasolines with higher RONs than the minimum legal octane ratings stipulated by the Ministry of Commerce.The Thai government is concerned that advertisements over several years have given motorists the false impression that the higher the RON number, the more power the fuel would produce in their engines.
While the legal minimum RON for regular gasoline is 87, retailers have been selling 92 RON fuel for this grade. Premium and super grades have been 97-98 RON fuels, although the legal requirement is only 95.
Metta Bangturngsuk, deputy secretary general of the National Energy Policy Office (NEPO), said most of the passenger cars in the kingdom do not really need gasoline with 97-98 RON.
Using higher octane means a substantial loss to the Thai economy as a whole and to the motorists themselves. Some car models actually need only 87 RON fuel, but motorists choose 97 RON, wasting 80 satang/l.
Meanwhile, the removal of gasoline with soft-seat valve protection is expected to save the country at least 190 million baht/year (at the exchange rate of 47 baht to a dollar) in foreign exchange.
NEPO estimated that, out of about 2 million passenger cars in Thailand, only about 50,000 require gasoline with soft-seat valve protection additive. And many of these 50,000 cars are very old and are not running anymore.
Official studies have shown that many of these cars can be run on gasoline without the additive without damage, provided they are not driven at more than 90 km/hr.
"As a matter of fact," said Metta, "many of those cars are unable to achieve that kind of speed anyway."
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