| 520 |
|
|
|b With growing concern in OAPEC’s member countries over environment and public health, more attention is given to the refining industry and its role in reducing vehicle emissions by improving quality of gasoline and diesel, since the majority of air pollution is often attributed to vehicle emissions. The main objective of this study is to examine the development of national transportation fuel standards in OAPEC’s member countries, address the necessary measures needed for enabling the refineries to meet the requirements of cleaner fuel standards in a way that offers an opportunity to generate a profitable return. The study is structured in five chapters, the first chapter includes an introduction explain the objectives of cleaner transportation fuel standards, classification of clean fuel specifications, success factors of issuing clean transportation quality standards and the impact of each specification on the vehicle engine performance and the emissions to the environment. The second chapter reviews the lesson learned from the previous experience of issuing transportation fuel standards in some international regions such as; United states, Western Europe, Japan, China, Russia, in addition to a comparison of these standards with the World Wide Fuel Charter. The third chapter discusses the refiner’s options for meeting the requirement of cleaner transportation fuel standards and analyze the factors influencing cleaner transportation fuel production and its impacts on the refining industry. The fourth chapter reviews the options that OAPEC’s member countries have planned to increase the production of cleaner fuel, such as: • Upgrading the existing refineries by increasing the capacity of the existing conversion processing units, such as Hydrocracker, Delayed Coker and Catalytic cracker or installing a new units. • Building a new refinery to produce additional petroleum products for export to the international market. MTBE is used in some OAPEC’s member countries for boosting the octane number of gasoline pool, lower aromatics and olefin content, and minimize the emissions from the vehicle exhaust. The fourth chapter also indicates that the most important drivers behind producing cleaner transportation fuels in OAPEC’s member countries are improving air quality to protect the public health and supplying the world with petroleum products that are both clean and affordable. The fifth chapter discusses in more details the development of national transportation fuel standards in each OAPEC’s member country. It also reviews the drivers behind producing cleaner fuel, and the measures required for enabling the refineries in each country to meet the requirement of cleaner transportation fuel standards. The study concluded that OAPEC’s member countries have made significant progress in recent decades to match the global trend of producing cleaner transportation fuel. Although the production of cleaner transportation fuels, in OAPEC’s member countries in accordance with the international standards, will require substantial investment and increase in operating cost at essentially most of the domestic refineries, the economic benefits of producing cleaner fuels far outweigh the costs, as these refineries will be more competitive and profitable. It is also recommended that when issuing the national fuel standards, the government should take into consideration the time and stages of implementation to allow the refining industry to make effective investment decisions. The study also concluded that before starting any revamping project, the refiner in OAPEC’s member countries should make visibility study to investigate the cost, benefit, producibility, and deliverability of products with required specifications.
|
