Indian Oil Corporation has become the first company in India to start producing special “baseline” petrol and diesel used for vehicle testing, officials said.
These fuels have higher specifications and are essential for calibration and testing by car manufacturers and testing institutes such as the International Center for Automotive Technology (ICAT) and the Indian Institute of Automotive Research.
India has relied on imports to meet its demand for these specialty fuels for decades.
But now, the IOC is developing its own products to replace imported products, ensuring a much lower cost and more reliable supply for automakers and testing institutes, officials said.
Fuel retailers such as IOC primarily sell two types of gasoline and diesel, regular and premium, through a network of gas stations. The biggest difference between normal and premium fuel is the octane number. Regular fuel has an octane rating of 87, while premium fuel has an octane rating of 91 or higher.
Octane number is nothing but a unit that measures the ignitability of gasoline.
However, for vehicle testing purposes, the fuel must be of a higher grade than regular or premium gasoline and diesel. Many standards ranging from cetane number to flash point, viscosity, sulfur and moisture content, hydrogen purity and acid number are listed under government regulations and such fuels are classified as ‘standard’ gasoline/diesel. It is called.
These reference fuels are used for emissions testing of vehicles with spark ignition engines.
Officials said the refinery was not producing any fuel because the demand for such fuels is traditionally not large. All requirements for the vehicle test “reference” have been imported.
IOC has started producing fuel at its refineries in line with the government’s goal of becoming atmanirbhar, or self-reliant.
They said the fuel is likely to be unveiled for the first time at Thursday’s event. Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri is also likely to appear at the event.
Besides IOC, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation are the two leading fuel retailers in the country. Of these, three state-owned enterprises control approximately 90% of the market.