DirtyOil wrote:
And as I stated... Canada and the US are years ahead of the so called "Global limits" our ECA has had limits set at 1000ppm, for several years now! No reason why we can't have ULSD across the board, for both on/off road, rail/marine and globally... process is there. Processors just need a kick in the rear and get their heads out of the sand.
I stated that because a few people that posted before that stated their area already has low sulfur diesel. I was making the point that these areas are not as big of a fuel demand as the 2020 regulation.
Although, the US EIA study on the cost per gallon increase when we switched to ULSD due to the desulfurization infrastructure needed at the refineries, The added cost of the desulfurization itself, the waste of having to sell new product at a lower value due to contamination with older higher sulfur product(especially in the first several years), the added distribution storage required due to the special needs of ULSD, and the lubricity additives needed to compensate for the reduction of aromatics and high-molecular-weight hydrocarbons stripped away by the severe hydrotreating used in the desulphurization process. It was a very interesting study.
All in all it increased the cost of diesel fuel since 2006 and will likely cause the cost of many products transported by these ships to increase which will be trickled down to the consumer. Then there is the aspect that it might increase the demand for sweet crude just like ULSD did, but that may not have that much of an impact these days. These added cost will probably decrease over time when the initial capital invested and value lost during the first few years due to contamination is regained like with current USLD, but that may take a while.
