Jack Peckham
A large group of major refiners in Asia jointly agreed to launch a long-term dialog with governments, vehicle/engine makers and environmental/health advocates--all aiming to improve air quality via cleaner fuels, vehicles and better transport planning.
In a joint statement signed by Bangchak Petroleum, BP, ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobil, Indian Oil, Pakistan State Oil, Petron, PTT (Thailand), Shell, Showa Shell Sekiyu, Singapore Petroleum, and Thai Oil, the companies announced their support for a long-term clean fuels/vehicles/transport-policy dialog involving Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia), which helped initiate the oil-company meeting in Singapore last month.
More oil companies in the region are expected to join the clean-fuels/clean-air dialog in coming months, following the Singapore organization meeting. Already, the group represents about half of Asia's refining capacity, and those joining in future would push the total well over 50%.
The joint oil-company statement recognizes that fuels and vehicles cause air pollution, but it urges multiple rather than uniform solutions. "We believe it is appropriate that a range of solutions be considered with the aim of identifying those which lead to the most balanced, cost-effective initiatives involving an acceptable overall cost to society," the oil-companies' joint statement says.
Many of the world's leading air-quality regulatory advocates urge that Asia's refiners move as quickly as possible to desulfurize fuels, in order to enable advanced, catalyzed vehicle/engine exhaust systems (see Diesel Fuel News 6/9/03, p1). Example: Asia Development Bank (ADB), one member of CAI-Asia, urges that Asia's governments "should aim for Euro-4 fuels with a maximum of 50-ppm sulfur" by 2010, coincident with Euro-4 vehicle emissions limits (Diesel Fuel News 6/23/03, PO.
However, the purpose of the new oil-company clean-fuels dialog isn't to pin the companies into region-wide limits by a specific deadline fight now. Rather, the point is to begin a process--the end-result of which is cleaner air for Asia, said Cornie Huizenga of the CAI-Asia secretariat.
~Common-Ground Sought At Start
"The attitude from both sides is: Let's focus on what binds us and not what divides us," Huizenga told Diesel Fuel News in a interview following the Singapore oil-companies' dialog "launch meeting."
"We will have divergent opinions on time-frames and levels, and that will occur among the oil companies, too. Even though this is a regional dialog, it's not intended that we come up with one fuel standard for Asia. For example, Hong Kong may do ULSD, but not China [at the same time]. Some countries are contemplating Euro-4 standards by 2010, but there will be countries in Asia moving at different speeds, and cities within countries moving at different speeds, as in India, where stricter standards are proposed for 'mega-cities.'"
CAI-Asia isn't a regulatory body but rather a facilitator of information, policy development and demonstration projects, designed to help companies and governments find cost-effective air quality solutions (see Diesel Fuel News 3/3/03, p 7).
"This process is expected to take some time," Huizenga explains. "Getting quick results via command-and-control would be difficult in much of Asia. So, while we want to strengthen air-quality regulatory capacity, we also want a dialog with industry. CAI-Asia's role is that of an honest broker, to play that role in a capable manner."
Bolstering this process is aid from "green" think-tank Hewlett Foundation, which recently agreed to recruit former U.S. EPA mobile-sources director Mike Walsh (now an international air-quality regulatory consultant) to help promote cleaner fuels/vehicles in Asia, Huizenga said.
Yet another recent addition to CAI-Asia efforts is former California Air Resources Board fuels regulatory expert John Curtis, who directed a study on the relationship between fuel quality and air quality in Thailand, Huizenga says. Also coming: A new fuel-quality/air quality study for Malaysia, which could lead to new fuel-quality policy decisions.
"The oil companies know that sooner or later, regulation will come," Huizenga told us. "Hong Kong has already moved to ULSD specifications, Korea announced a 30-ppm sulfur ULSD by 2006, and Japan is moving to desulfurize fuel. Discussions are also underway in Malaysia, Thailand and India.
"It's also clear that the oil industry would like consistent, predictable and transparent regulations. This is important not only for individual company one-on-one discussions with government, but also for industry-wide discussions. They want a fair hearing for their concerns."
Some of these future discussions could involve fiscal incentives for cleaner fuels, perhaps designed to encourage "early adopters" of ULSD, or to facilitate investment in desulfurization equipment. However, many CAI-Asia members believe such incentives should be temporary rather than open-ended subsidies that aren't economically sound, Huizenga explains.
The new oil-company dialog also will focus on related issues involving cleaner vehicles, engines, stationary-source emissions, vehicle maintenance, traffic planning and transport policy, he said.
"Strategies put in place in Asia should be based on sound analysis, before you decide what to do--before you decide, for example, on CNG [compressed natural gas] or clean-diesel fleets," he said.
Another possible area of future discussion is that of "fuel security," because some countries might fear that high costs of meeting tougher environmental and industry-efficiency standards could threaten the competitiveness of local refiners.
But no matter where these discussions eventually may go, a most encouraging sign is that the oil industry now wants to continue this dialog, he said.
Follow-up discussions on Asia fuel-quality strategies are being planned at the second Asia Fuels Conference, which CAI-Asia is co-organizing with Hart Worm Fuels Conference/ Asia-Australasia (October 27-28, in Sydney, Australia), along with an Environment Australia-supported CAI-Asia training workshop.
The training workshop will help air-quality regulators in Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Vietnam understand what to include in a fuel-quality strategy, what can be learned from experiences in other Asian countries, and how to develop an appropriate strategy for an individual country.
Air regulators will learn how to perform air-quality modeling exercises that show the emissions impact of different fuel qualities, fleet populations and fleet composition.
New data is coming to aid this process. Example: Indian oil companies are expected to put up $3 million for a new auto-fuel study, examining the impact of various fuel parameters on emissions. While this data could aid regulators in many parts of Asia, it also should have an impact on India's draft auto-fuel policy (see Diesel Fuel News 10/28/02, p1).
Separately, CAI-Asia is organizing Better Air Quality 2003 conference in Manila, Philippines, Dec. 17-19, featuring vehicle, fuel and emissions control strategies (including diesel fuel/emissions issues). More info: Cornie Huizenga (chuizenga@adb.org).
COPYRIGHT 2003 PBI Media, LLC
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group
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