Editorial: Showtime for ULSD

Click here to write a Letter to the Editor.

hursday, June 1, was the first in a series of deadlines leading to Jan. 1, when all new diesel truck engines have to comply with the government’s sharply tightened exhaust emission standards.

To keep those new engines running right, truckers need fuel with no more than 15 parts per million of sulfur, which is almost no sulfur at all compared with the current standard of 500 ppm sulfur.

Trucking is facing a higher price tag for cleaner equipment. But before fleet owners lay out the extra $7,000 to $10,000 that the new engine systems will add to the cost of 2007 trucks, they need to know they’ll have easy access to fuel that won’t clog their expensive diesel particulate filters.

Diesel fuel is the lifeblood of trucking, and as anyone who has been reading Transport Topics for the past few years knows, we have some very important issues with ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel, the main one being: Will it be there when we need it?

Making ULSD available is a complicated process. You can’t just throw a switch on Jan. 1 and expect it to be everywhere at once. That’s why the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule directs refiners and fuel suppliers to ramp up delivery of ULSD well ahead of that date.

The ramp-up starts with EPA’s requirement that ULSD constitutes 80% of all highway-use diesel made after June 1.

We’ve been waiting with bated breath to see what would happen on June 1. So far, it looks like the answer is, not very much.

It’s hard to find a refinery that is making ULSD right now. Refiners say that’s OK, because EPA’s rule allows them to average 80% ULSD between June 1 and the end of the year. So we shouldn’t worry, they say; the fuel will be there when the new trucks come out of the factory in January. And now, petroleum marketers are asking for a little more flexibility, a little more margin of error, a little more sulfur in the ULSD they actually supply.

All of this makes us nervous.

There is already concern that ULSD will pick up extra sulfur as it moves through pipelines that also carry higher-sulfur fuels. Pipeline companies, fuel distributors and dealers and fleets that buy their fuel in bulk and store it themselves all must keep the sulfur in ULSD at or below 15 ppm.

That means everyone involved needs the six-month cushion the June 1 deadline was supposed to provide.

Trucking needs the refiners to start making ULSD for real. Curtain’s going up — it’s showtime!

This editorial appears in the June 5 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.