The refining industry will find it difficult to respond to the call for cleaner fuels without assistance from government. That’s according to Kevin Baart, head of strategic projects at the South African Petroleum Industry Association (Sapia), who said with the Green Transport Strategy aiming to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels and promoting biogas and LNG, the pressure was on refineries to deliver cleaner fuels. “These fuels are a prerequisite for the introduction of better vehicles technology, but for refineries to deliver it they will require investment to allow them to manufacture,” he said. South Africa first implemented its clean fuel programme in 2006 with Clean Fuels I which prohibited the addition of lead in unleaded petrol. At the time serious fuel supply disruptions were experienced. Clean Fuels II was supposed to come into operation in 2017 but was postponed to a date to be determined in the future.
