Arco Ties ‘Clean’ Gasoline to New State Standards : * Energy: The company says its new, more expensive motor fuel formula will not be marketed if other firms are not required by government to follow suit.

Atlantic Richfield Co. on Thursday unveiled a motor fuel that could cut smog-forming emissions in California by roughly a third--what it called “the cleanest-burning gasoline ever developed.”

But Arco said its new “EC-X” gasoline, which would cost about 16 cents a gallon more than conventional gasoline, will not be marketed commercially unless the state--in rules being developed for the mid-1990s--requires all oil companies to make the same type of fuel.

“Why does everyone else have to do it? Because no company can afford to sell more expensive gasoline like EC-X if others can undercut us with a cheaper, dirtier product,” Arco Chairman Lodwrick M. Cook said at a news conference in Hollywood.

Arco plans to lobby the California Air Resources Board, which is mulling strict new gasoline standards to be adopted this fall for 1995 or 1996, to use its new gasoline formula as the basis for the industry.

Arco said it would make its formula--which the company said burns as cleanly as some methanol mixtures--available free to any refiner.

But while air quality officials praised Arco’s efforts, they said they would reserve judgment on whether EC-X will be the basis of state standards.

“We have similar data from other companies. It’s just that obviously we’ve been asked to keep that information confidential for trade secrets,” CARB spokesman Bill Sessa said. “The difference is that Arco is willing to stand up in a press conference and talk about theirs.”

The Times reported Wednesday that Arco planned to introduce the new gasoline.

The new gasoline would cut emissions significantly, Arco said. If all cars and trucks in California burned it, emissions would be cut by 3.8 million pounds per day--the equivalent of eliminating 8 million vehicles, or about a third of all cars and trucks, from state highways, Cook said.

“There’s no question that it is a very, very long step forward, the kind of constructive step that we have to have,” said Norton Young-love, chairman of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, who attended Thursday’s news conference.

Arco’s new gasoline presents a lower-cost, more feasible alternative to methanol mixtures as the cleaner-burning fuel of the future--without diminishing performance, Cook said.

In making that claim, he was clearly taking aim at environmental advocates who favor such alternative fuels to displace gasoline. Air quality officials in the past have questioned whether gasoline could be made to burn as cleanly as M-85, a mixture of 85% methanol and 15% gasoline.

Arco officials said it would cost about $1 billion and take four years to modify its Carson refinery to make the new gasoline in sufficient quantities to meet demand. The fuel would probably be sold in three grades, said George H. Babikian, president of Arco’s refining and marketing subsidiary.

The new gasoline is one of four formulas Arco tested. One formula burned even cleaner than EC-X, but would have cost about 22 cents a gallon more than conventional gasoline, Babikian said.

Arco’s announcement appears to put it at odds with the oil and auto industries.

In a joint study, the two groups have produced data questioning the feasibility of reformulating gasoline in the manner required by the new federal Clean Air Act. Arco’s gasoline suggests it can be done--and can be taken even further.

Arco’s New Formula

According to company test data, Arco’s new EC-X gasoline would significantly reduce several emissions that form smog or otherwise pollute the air. Compared to the average U.S. conventional gasoline in late-model vehicles, EC-X would cut:

* Hydrocarbon tailpipe emissions by 28%

* Evaporative emissions by 36%

* Emissions of nitrogen oxides by 26%

* Carbon monoxide emissions by 25%

* Toxic emissions by 47%