Arco to Sell Cleaner New Diesel Fuel for Fleets

Atlantic Richfield Co. will begin selling a cleaner diesel fuel for Southern California municipal fleet vehicles, in a new formulation that Arco believes will help reduce sooty emissions significantly, the Los Angeles oil company will announce today.

The new diesel contains one-eighth the sulfur of that currently sold, an improvement that will decrease toxic emissions from buses and trucks that have been retrofitted with catalytic converters. Lowering sulfur content allows the catalytic devices to more effectively clean the exhaust from diesel engines.

Arco is introducing the cleaner formulation to defend diesel’s share of the market against inroads made by alternative fuels such as natural gas, and to show support for a proposal by the California Air Resources Board staff to require sharp reductions in bus emissions, said Roger Truitt, president of Arco Products, the oil company’s marketing and refining arm.

“We are diesel producers, and we want to keep it as a viable fuel,” Truitt said. “We believe there’s going to be a market for this [low-sulfur fuel], and we want to be proactive on it.”

Arco said it supplies about 20% of the state’s daily 220,000-barrel production of diesel.

The California air board, which last year identified diesel soot as a toxic pollutant, will consider at its Jan. 27 meeting a staff proposal to require that urban buses be virtually exhaust-free by 2007.

The board finds Arco’s low-sulfur diesel launch “encouraging,” spokesman Jerry Martin said. “Arco’s new low-sulfur diesel fuel can help all diesels in California run more cleanly.”

Arco believes that the new diesel, when combined with catalytic exhaust treatment systems, will reduce emissions as much as or more than alternative fuels, Truitt said.

The new Arco diesel, which will be available immediately in Southern California, will have a maximum sulfur content of 15 parts per million, which compares with the current average of about 120 parts per million, Truitt said. Arco is testing an even cleaner fuel called EC Diesel, which contains 5 to 10 parts per million of sulfur as well as other modifications.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Santa Monica Municipal Bus Lines are interested in trying out the latest low-sulfur diesel.

“We are interested in types of fuel that will help clean the air,” MTA spokesman Jim Pachan said. About 1,500 of the agency’s 2,230 buses use diesel fuel.

Arco, which will produce the low-sulfur fuel at its Los Angeles refinery, could sell the product outside Southern California if buyers are interested, Truitt said.

The company intends to sell the diesel at competitive prices, he said, noting that the California air board has estimated that the lower-sulfur diesel will cost about 5 cents more a gallon.

The cost of retrofitting a vehicle with a catalytic device needed to use the low-sulfur fuel is dramatically less than buying new equipment or engines that run on alternative fuels, he said.