Improved Gasoline Blend Arrives in County Today

Tanker trucks begin delivering a new blend of gasoline to service stations across Ventura County today, trying an altered formula designed to cut 15% of pollution emitted from cars.

The reformulated gasoline, expected to raise gas prices 5 to 10 cents per gallon, will be required at all gas stations in the county and other places around the nation that violate federal health standards for air pollution.

Although the federal Clean Air Act does not require the sale of the new blend until Jan. 1, oil companies will infuse storage tanks with the cleaner-burning fuel this month so they can flush out the old gas by the New Year.

That’s when the price increase should hit the pump, said Tim Hamilton of the Automotive Trade Organizations of California, which represents service station owners.

“My prediction is that we are going to see prices ease up a nickel to a dime in January,” Hamilton said. But he warned that the price per gallon could jump as high as 25 cents if oil refineries fail to produce enough of the new formula.

The new formula will replace all grades of gasoline regardless of octane.

The improved fuel was applauded Wednesday by environmentalists and county air quality officials as an important step toward reducing pollution from cars--the largest contributor to the county’s serious smog problem.

“The minute the reformulated gas hits the market, there will be an immediate improvement in the performance of cars,” said Veronica Kun, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It is a very worthwhile and cost-effective solution over the next couple of decades, as long as we have internal combustion engines that rely on gasoline.”

The new formula mandated by the Clean Air Act was developed during a six-year, $40-million research program undertaken by a consortium of 14 oil companies and America’s Big Three auto makers.

Over the years, much of the effort to reduce automobile pollution has concentrated on improving cars. But this time, auto and oil companies tinkered with gasoline formulas to reduce the emission of compounds that react with other chemicals in sunlight to form ozone, the major component of smog.

“It is a simple concept,” said J. Wayne Miller, a leading chemical engineer with Unocal Corp. who worked with the consortium on the new formula. But he said it was not so simple to derive the new formula or figure out the least-costly way to manufacture it.

Miller said it will cost the industry an average of 5 cents a gallon to make the new formula. Market conditions, he said, will determine if that is passed on to consumers.

Miller is scheduled to tour Ventura County today to talk about reformulated gasoline that reduces 15% of air toxics, such as benzene, and 15% of smog-forming hydrocarbons.

“The reformulated gasoline is part of a series of steps to making air healthier to breathe,” Miller said.

Beginning in March, 1996, the California Air Resources Board will require oil companies to sell an even cleaner-burning blend of gasoline throughout the state.

But the federally mandated reformulated gasoline emerging this month will only be required for sale in Ventura County, the greater Los Angeles area, San Diego, and other areas around the country with severe smog problems: Hartford, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Houston and Milwaukee.

Dozens of other metropolitan areas have decided to join the program, so the reformulated gas will account for nearly 35% of all domestic gasoline consumption, according to Unocal.

Ventura County’s highest smog levels usually occur in the inland valleys, such as Ojai Valley and Simi Valley, where breezes off the ocean trap air pollutants against surrounding mountains.

William Mount, Ventura County’s deputy air pollution control officer, said he views reformulated gas as a cost-effective way to further reduce air pollution and help the county meet federal clean-air standards.

“We’ve squeezed about everything we can out of our industrial section,” Mount said. The new fuel, he said, “is not going to make a major impact, but it is part of the overall solution.”