• The battle to improve the quality of winter diesel
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appears to be cooling down. Three major oil companies — Shell, Mobil and BP — now offer winter grade diesel better than, or equal to, the specifications asked for by a number of transport industry representatives including the RHA and FTA (see Operator's Handbook, page 26).
FTA director of engineering, Terry Goldrick says: "Commercial forces have come into play and the oil companies are now giving their customers what they want, which is a better chance of keeping going in bad weather and not having vehicles stranded out on the road."
The improvements now on offer include a cold filter plugging point of at least —15°C, compared to the current British Standard of —9°C and a cloud point of —5°C. So far a cloud point is not included in the British.Standard for derv.
The revisions, which mean that diesel will start to wax at lower temperatures, short cut the negotiations that have been dragging on for many months to improve the British Standard for winter diesel. Failure of the BSI technical committee to agree on improvements recently led the BSI to invoke the disputes procedure (CM 3-9 September).