Adulteration is like corruption. It exists but we do not want to catch it.

NEW DELHI MARCH 12, 2002: The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) recently undertook an independent inspection of fuel adulteration in the National Capital Territory of Delhi and National Capital Region following a mandate from the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) under the Supreme Court order of November 22, 2002. This report was released by CSE in a press conference held in the Capital today.

We didn't expect to find much adulteration but what we have exposed is stunning.

1. How much of adulteration did we find?
This inspection - though carried out as independently as possible - was done at a time when the oil industry and potential offenders were alerted by the Supreme Court order to monitor fuel adulteration. Despite the odds, more samples have failed during this operation - 8.3 per cent of the samples tested, than the normal failure rate of a mere 1-2 per cent reported by the oil companies in the past.

Astonishingly, the failure rate turned out to be much higher when we reassessed the test results given by the Society for Petroleum Laboratory (SFPL) that was designated to do the tests. We were shocked to note that SFPL was still using the older specification of 3 per cent maximum limit for benzene to interpret test results for petrol samples because Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas had not even bothered to modify the BIS standards to integrate the Supreme Court order on 1 per cent benzene petrol for the NCT and NCR. After correction the total number of failed petrol samples shot up to 30 per cent of all petrol samples and the total sample failure rate increased to 26 per cent.


2. Tests are inadequate to detect intelligent adulteration
We soon realised that counting number of failed samples is meaningless, as tests have not even been designed to catch adulteration. We learnt to our peril that testing for compliance with fuel quality standards, as SFPL does, is not same as testing for adulteration.

Our worst fears were confirmed when SFPL failed to detect adulterated samples that we had deliberately sent to check if these would show up under tests prescribed for BIS standards. CSE mixed kerosene with diesel at the following proportions -- 10, 15, 20 per cent. SFPL was able to detect only the sample contaminated with 15 per cent kerosene but declared the samples with 10 and 20 per cent contamination as meeting all the specifications of diesel. The sample contaminated with 15 per cent kerosene failed only on sulphur limit.

Its shocking that fuel quality standards are too lax to detect adulteration. For most parameters BIS standards allow a broad range that can cushion some amount of adulteration and make adulteration to some extent legal.

Intelligent mix of common adulterants like kerosene and light diesel oil with diesel or naphtha and other solvents with petrol may not show up in routine BIS tests. Yet a small mix of 10-15 per cent without violating the standards can help to reap lucrative profits - as much as Rs 25,000 profit a day just by mixing 15 per cent naphtha with petrol. Intelligent calculations are possible to work out the right proportion of adulteration -- a mix of 20 per cent naphtha in petrol with 92 octane can still meet the minimum requirement of 88 octane.


3. Lax fuel quality standards make adulteration easy but detection difficult
Not only the range of the parameters too broad, some key parameters of fuels like aromatics and olefins in petrol and polyaromatic hydrocarbons in diesel are not even regulated. So these cannot be tested to detect adulteration. Worse, even among the parameters that are currently tested some important tests like sulphur, benzene and cetane rating of diesel are not done on a routine basis. This weakens the testing system even further.


4. Inexplicable level of sulphur
The big rip off is the inexplicable variation in sulphur levels in fuels from the refinery to the retail end. Sulphur content in both petrol and diesel is mysteriously lower at both the depot and at the retail outlets than what Mathura refinery produces.

Our comparison of the fuel specifications of different batches of fuels as recorded at the Mathura refinery, and Bijwasan depot by Indian Oil Corporation spanning over a month, with the results from the retail outlets blew the lid. While the sulphur level in diesel at the refinery varies from 400-480 ppm, it reduces to a uniform consistent level of 200 ppm at the depot level. More ridiculous is the low level of sulphur in petrol - as low as 110 ppm at the depot level, as against a range of 350 ppm to 450 ppm tested at the Mathura refinery. Even at the retail outlet the levels are below what refineries are producing.

Oil industry's feeble attempt to explain this on the ground of possible variation allowed under test methods is not at all convincing. How can any test method allow a margin for variation as high as 75 per cent? Internationally acceptable methods for similar tests allow variation only upto 10-12 per cent. Is the oil industry trying to claim that 400 ppm sulphur recorded in refinery is equal to 100 ppm at the retail outlet? How will it then ever know if adulteration reduces concentration of sulphur to very low levels? We believe, in the absence of any plausible explanation from the oil industry, these low sulphur results in the depot and retail outlets could be adulterated samples.


5. Need for alternative test methods for accurate detection of adulteration
Knowing well the problem of padding of some amount of adulteration within the permissible range of BIS standards it is important to be cautious about the samples that are at the margin. These samples would need confirmatory and precise tests for more accurate detection that are not done currently.

To confirm this CSE conducted a limited set of tests on gas chromatography with flame ionisation detector in Pollution Control Laboratory of CSE. These test methods help to analyse individual hydrocarbon structure of the samples for more accurate fingerprinting. This makes comparison with the reference samples of fuels from depots and refineries easy and reveals any aberration that may happen due to adulteration. Our results show astonishingly high variation in some key aromatic compounds like hexane, pentane, xylene in petrol samples etc, between the depot samples and the retail samples, which would have gone undetected under BIS test methods as aromatics are not even tested as these are not regulated in India. Alternative fuel testing methods are available and applied in other countries for more accurate results to deal with the problem of smuggling and mixing of cheaper and untaxed fuels.


6. What have we asked for?
Make oil companies accountable for the quality of fuel at the retail end
Strict liability must be imposed on the oil companies to take full responsibility for the quality of fuels they sell at their retail outlets To put it simply consumers cannot sue the oil companies for adulterated fuels. Unless this is done checks and balances in the system will not work effectively to prevent malpractices at any level.

Do public rating of retail outlets by the name of the companies
Introduce public rating of the retail outlets by the name of the oil companies based on an independent inspection, testing and audit of the outlet. Protection of brand name would be most critical for the oil companies to guard their market share in a competitive market especially after the decontrol.

Improve testing procedures and tighten fuel quality standards
Tighten fuel quality standards and regulate all key parameters that are not done today like aromatics, olefins in petrol, and PAH in diesel. Also tighten the broad range allowed under the current specifications.

Develop alternative testing procedures for more accurate detection