New Gasoline May Burn Clean as Methanol, Arco Says

Atlantic Richfield Co. said Thursday that it will begin final testing of a new gasoline formula that the company is “90% convinced” burns as cleanly as a methanol-gasoline mixture believed to be among the lowest-emission fuels available for vehicles.

Arco is beginning a 10-car test of four formulations of gasoline designed to produce fewer pollutants, including one formula believed to be the most likely candidate to burn as cleanly as M-85, the mixture of 85% methanol and 15% gasoline that is being used in test vehicles.

“One of these formulas we are 90% convinced can match the emission levels of M-85,” George H. Babikian, president of Arco’s refining and marketing unit, said at a news conference. “Another formula we are convinced has better than a 50-50 chance . . . and the other two we feel have a chance . . . less than 50%.”

Results of the tests will be available in May, Babikian said.

The tests are intended to show which formula burns cleanest at the lowest cost, Arco said. Babikian estimated that an M-85-equivalent gasoline could be manufactured for about 15 cents a gallon more than conventional fuel. The methanol fuel, by comparison, would cost 25 to 40 cents a gallon more than ordinary gasoline.

Even if tests support Arco’s hopes, however, the company wouldn’t be able to produce the fuel until 1996 or 1997--after making about $3 billion in modifications to its refineries in Los Angeles and Cherry Point, Wash.

The gasoline formulation would likely resemble Arco’s current EC gasolines, which are less volatile than ordinary gasolines, have fewer toxic components and contain an oxygenating ingredient to promote more efficient combustion.

State air quality officials and environmentalists, who have praised Arco’s development of lower-emissions fuels, withheld judgment about the new fuels until tests are completed.

“The real question isn’t whether it’s as clean as M-85,” said Daniel Weiss, director of environmental quality for the Sierra Club in Washington. “The question is whether it’s clean enough to meet the requirements of the (federal) Clean Air Act.”

Arco first said it had devised an M-85-equivalent gasoline late last year in testimony before the California Air Resources Board, which last September adopted stringent new rules governing auto emissions, said CARB spokesman Bill Sessa.

So far, however, “we have not seen any gasoline as clean as M-85,” Sessa said. “Even though they said in hearings that they think they can do it, we have not seen any testing that says they have.”

Arco made the announcement of the upcoming testing at a news conference at which it maintained that 100 million pounds of pollutants have been eliminated from Southern California skies through the sale of its two lower-emissions gasolines during the past two years. Arco was the first oil company to sell such gasolines; several now market versions throughout the country.

A consortium of the Big Three U.S. auto makers and 14 oil companies is conducting a $41-million research project into cleaner gasoline and other alternative fuels. Although Arco is a participant, it is also conducting its own independent tests.

Babikian estimated that motorists’ switching from conventional fuels to Arco’s two EC gasolines has resulted in reductions of about 159 tons of pollutants a day in the Los Angeles basin.