Reformulated Gas to Help Clear Southland’s Skies

In California’s epic quest for cleaner air, 1996 will stand out: Almost instantaneously, all 24 million cars--from old clunkers to brand-new luxury cars--will pollute dramatically less as the entire state switches to a new formula for gasoline.

Over the next couple of months, all service stations in California will replace their old blends with the world’s cleanest-burning gasoline to comply with a state air-quality regulation.

With automobiles blamed for more than half of the smog blanketing the Los Angeles Basin, the new recipes for gasoline are the most sweeping and effective effort to combat smog since cars were equipped with catalytic converters 20 years ago. Cleaner-burning gasoline is equivalent to removing 3 1/2 million cars from California roads--nearly half of them in smoggy Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

“The air quality benefits of cleaner-burning gasoline are real and substantial, and the effects will be immediate and statewide,” said John Dunlap, chairman of the Air Resources Board, which set the new fuel rule. “This is the last big [smog-cutting] measure for California. We won’t have another one that will have as broad an immediate impact.”

After years of massive preparations, all California refineries must begin producing the new gasoline by March 1, and service stations must convert entirely to the new blends by June 1. Many will begin selling it later this month.

Except for price, the transformation is expected to be fairly painless for consumers, most of whom won’t even realize they are buying an entirely new product, according to the oil industry and California air board.

Fuel will be sold in the same grades and octane levels. Performance of most car engines is expected to remain the same, although one oil company, Chevron, warns that older or high-mileage models may suffer more fuel system failures, including gasoline leaks.

Prices at the pump, however, are expected to rise, and mileage will dip a barely noticeable amount. A car that travels 22 miles on a gallon today will run about 21.8 miles on a gallon of the new gas, according to the oil industry and air officials.

“We don’t want people to think this is something different. It’s cleaner, so it is better, but it’s still gasoline, and it will work naturally and normally in their existing vehicles,” said Doug Henderson, executive director of the Western States Petroleum Assn., an oil industry trade group.

With the expense of overhauling refineries--$4 billion to $5 billion industrywide--and the cost of producing the new formula, refineries will spend an average of 10 cents per gallon more to make the gasoline.

However, because of competitive pressures, especially in the Los Angeles region, the price to consumers is not expected to reflect increases that steep. The oil companies declined to disclose their planned price increases.

“This investment won’t be recouped because the market dictates the price at the pump. Chevron and Arco are fighting for market share, and Unocal is fighting for its life,” Henderson said. Some prices may even go down because of competition and fluctuating crude oil prices, he said.

Air Board Rule

California’s 10 oil companies had no choice but to make the enormous, unprecedented investment. Under the air board’s 1991 rule, they are forced to manufacture cleaner blends or quit selling gasoline in California, which consumes about 14 billion gallons per year.

In the late 1980s, California shook up the oil industry by warning that clean air would entail a switch to an entirely different fuel, such as methanol. Led by Arco, which produced its pioneering emission-control gasoline in 1989, oil companies fought back by developing new generations of gasoline cleaner than ever envisioned.

In January 1995, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency required cleaner-burning blends in nine smog-prone areas of the nation, including six Southern California counties. In that formula, much of the benzene--a cancer-causing compound with high octane--was replaced with lower polluting oxygenates.

But this year’s version, required only in California, is twice as clean than even the low-benzene gasoline.

Every day, the new reformulated gasoline will cleanse California’s skies of 215 tons of hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides that form ozone--the main ingredient of smog--on top of 85 tons removed with last year’s low-benzene fuel. Together, the two steps amount to a 15% reduction in smog-causing gases from autos. Also, sulfur emissions are cut 80% and the human cancer risk posed by gasoline fumes is slashed in half.

And the drop in pollution comes all at once, unlike past emission controls such as catalytic converters that reduced total exhaust emissions slowly, as new cars replaced older ones.

A decline of that magnitude is likely to show up this summer in fewer smog alerts throughout the Los Angeles Basin, which experienced its best smog year on record in 1995. The San Francisco Bay Area could come into complete compliance with all health standards for air quality.

To create gasoline that evaporates less and burns more completely, refineries are altering the molecular structure of key ingredients of crude oil.

A large portion of the highly evaporative compounds called olefins and aromatics is removed through chemical reactions and replaced with less volatile, high-octane alkylates. The distillation temperature and vapor pressure are also lowered, while the oil is treated with hydrogen to reduce sulfur.

The chemistry may sound simple, but for a refinery such as Arco’s plant in Carson that produces 5 million gallons of gasoline a day, the scope of such simultaneous change in processes is enormous.

The 630-acre refinery has been transformed at a $600-million cost. “Virtually every process here was touched,” said Arco refinery manager Abe Johnson as he drove through the sprawling complex, which supplies 30% of the Los Angeles area’s gasoline. “There aren’t just one or two big changes. There are too many to name.”

Among the new features at the landmark refinery, which opened in the 1920s, are a pair of 140-foot-tall towers and four giant spheres for storing chemicals.

“You separate the benzene out, pump it up to a higher pressure, add hydrogen and pass over a catalyst at high temperature,” Johnson said. “That alone just described $200 million in changes to our refinery.”

Smoother Transition

Henderson called the clean fuel overhaul the “biggest job creator” in California in recent years, with 20,000 construction jobs and about 1,000 permanent jobs filled.

But forcing a new fuel on millions of consumers can be risky--as proved in the past.

In 1993, some fuel shortages and malfunctions in older trucks resulted when the Air Resources Board ordered a new diesel fuel. The problems disappeared after a shaky few months in which Gov. Pete Wilson intervened on behalf of angry truckers.

Also, when the EPA-ordered, low-benzene fuel debuted in January 1995, a furor ignited in Milwaukee, where thousands of people complained of headaches, nausea and other symptoms. Health officials found no apparent link to the new oxygenated fuel and concluded that colds and flu were probably to blame, with the uproar exacerbated by media reports and talk shows. Few complaints emerged in the eight other areas where the gasoline was introduced.

This time, oil companies and the Air Resources Board, in an unusual alliance, are working to ensure a smoother transition.

In the most comprehensive tests ever conducted on a new fuel, 830 business and government vehicles, including Sacramento police cars, were driven more than 5 million miles on the cleaner gas.

The air board concluded that the new gas “performed as well as conventional fuel in terms of driveability, starting, idling, acceleration, power and safety.”

However, in a test by Chevron, some old and high-mileage vehicles suffered fuel system malfunctions.

Chevron has opted to post warnings on pumps advising that cars more than 10 years old or exceeding 100,000 miles should be checked for worn fuel system hoses, seals and other rubber parts. The potential problem applies to all brands. But other oil companies and the air board decided against issuing similar warnings because overall tests found the risk to be no higher than normal.

“The vast majority of vehicles won’t even notice the difference when they go to the new fuel,” said Chevron spokesman Jim Hendon. “But we felt an obligation to warn our consumers about it, and some in the industry and government say this is overkill by our part.”

The new gasoline is the first major measure in the Wilson administration’s 15-year clean air plan to be implemented. Unlike other recent rules, especially the air board’s mandate for mass sale of electric cars, it is taking effect on schedule and with little acrimony.

“As a side benefit, this will be another example of California showing the way and trying something new,” Dunlap said. “This program makes our refiners in California produce the cleanest fuel in the world, and other portions of the world may follow.”

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Cleaner-Burning Gasoline

New, cleaner gasoline appears at gas stations this month and will become mandatory in California on June 1. It costs an average of 10 cents a gallon more to produce the new fuel, but price increases, if any, will vary. The reformulated gasoline will be the best anti-smog step for vehicles since the catalytic converter, air officials say. Here is a look at the effectiveness of other steps, in tons of hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides removed from the air.

Step Taken / Year: Tons Removed Daily

State gasoline reformulation / 1996: 215

Federal gasoline reformulation / 1995: 85

Auto nitrogen oxide standard / 1993 models: 117

Auto hydrocarbon standard / 1993 models: 35

Diesel fuel reformulation / 1993: 70

Smog check / 1984: 150

Gas pump nozzles / 1976: 120

Consumer information on the gasoline is available through the state’s toll-free hotline--(800) 9CARFG9.

Source: California Air Resources Board