(704e) Fuel Quality Roadmap for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Domestic Transportation Fuel

Abstract

Mobile sources have since been identified as the primary contributors of NOx, VOC, PM and CO emissions in KSA. Improvements in fuel quality for the existing vehicle fleet will provide immediate emission reductions of pollutants that are known to have detrimental effect on human health and the environment. Saudi Aramco took the proactive initiative to further improve air quality by developing a clean fuel quality roadmap for the Kingdom’s domestic transportation fuel to achieve the following goals:

• improve the quality of the environment to provide clean air to protect human health for current and future generations;
• maintain a competitive position in global markets for continuing fuel export; and
• ensure fuel compatibility with future automotive engine technology.

The critical elements of the clean transportation fuels (CTF) program are a reduction in sulfur content in the gasoline and diesel products to 10 ppm, reduction in the gasoline benzene to 1 vol.% and a maximum gasoline aromatic content of 35 vol.%. As a consequence, CTF projects were initiated that will install new processing units at the company’s domestic refineries to meet the new gasoline and diesel products requirements.

This presentation will focus on the primary specification changes for KSA fuels in the last 5 years and the estimated reduction in emissions and other benefits to be realized upon implementation of the roadmap.