Arco Delivers Its 2nd Punch in Cleaner-Burning Gas War
Atlantic Richfield Co. unveiled its second reduced-emissions gasoline Thursday--this one for cars using premium unleaded fuel--and called it the “cleanest-burning” automobile fuel available in Southern California.
The new Arco product, a high-octane unleaded gasoline called EC-Premium, was introduced at more than 700 service stations between Santa Barbara and San Diego and was touted by Arco executives at a Los Angeles news conference and later in interviews.
The company was the first oil firm to put a reduced-emissions gasoline on the market, introducing its EC-1--a replacement for regular leaded gasoline--a year ago.
By introducing another low-emission gasoline--in this case, a reformulated product that is replacing Arco’s 91-octane super unleaded in the Southland--the company hopes to impress Congress and the South Coast Air Quality Management District, an agency that monitors and regulates air quality in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
Members of Congress and the local district have been developing clean-air proposals that are likely to mandate tougher gasoline emission standards and require more use of alternative fuels such as methanol.
“We decided to get out front because we wanted to convince regulators and legislators that reformulated gasoline was an alternative to regular gasoline and the most efficient way to clean up the air,” Arco Chairman Lodwrick M. Cook said during an interview Thursday. “We thought it (EC-Premium) would be another way to reduce pollution, and we decided to go ahead and do it.”
Arco said tests of the new gasoline show significant reductions in hazardous emissions. Arco has about 15% of the premium gasoline market in Southern California, and the company said that if its current premium customers buy the same quantities of EC-Premium, auto emissions in the South Coast Air Basin would be reduced by 43 tons a day. Currently, vehicle emissions in the basin total about 6,077 tons daily.
The Los Angeles-based oil firm said the new gasoline emits less carbon monoxide and less benzene, a carcinogenic chemical. EC-Premium also has reduced levels of aromatics and olefins, a group of chemical components that contribute to the formation of smog, company executives said.
Arco is one of a number of oil companies that have introduced cleaner-burning unleaded gasoline in the past 12 months. Since Arco introduced EC-1 last September, a number of cleaner-burning unleaded versions have been placed on the market. Among them are Shell’s SU 2000E, Chevron’s Supreme Unleaded and Exxon’s Reduced Emissions Exxon Supreme and Exxon Plus.
To compete, Cook said, Arco will sell its new premium at the same price as its old high-octane product despite the fact that the new EC-Premium costs 4 cents more per gallon to produce. He said the company hopes to make up the difference by increasing its sales volume and market share in Southern California.
