Bio Fuels: How David Stole Goliath's Thunder

August 1st marked an historic occasion for NZ Motorists, when PM Helen Clark stood at a Gull Service Station pouring the first commercially available E10 fuel into cars from Honda, Ford, Holden and Volkswagen.
Called Force 10 by Gull Petroleum, the 98 octane rated fuel is a blend of 90 percent petrol and 10 percent ethanol, which is supplied by Fonterra’s Reporoa dairy plant.
Gull Petroleum blend the Force 10 fuel at their state of the art storage facility in Mount Maunganui. Currently Force 10 is available at four Auckland Gull outlets, and the company wants to eventually provide the E10 blend to its network between Whangarei and Masterton.
The government have mandated that the oil companies must meet a sales obligation of 3.4 percent bio fuel content in their petrol or diesel by 2012. There will be stiff penalties for any companies who do not meet the obligation and herein lays some logistical and marketing issues for Shell, BP, Mobil and Chevron Texaco.
Having an older network of fuel sites with single skin tanks that may not be compatible with bio fuels is one such challenge that lays ahead for them, and it’s possible that they may look at a bio diesel blend to combat this issue.
Being the underdog “David” company amongst the international “Goliath” conglomerates has allowed the family-owned Gull Petroleum Company to meet the governments mandated bio fuel additive requirement eight months before the legislation required it to.
The larger companies have not yet indicated how they will meet the sales obligation and there has been some controversy over which vehicles are able to use E10 in its current format from Gull and which cannot. We have some data tables on page 10 which give an accurate guide from the Manufacturers.
What is concerning is the lack of fuel testing data for our large fleet of imported used Japanese domestic cars.
The Motor Industry Association spokes-person Perry Kerr released a list of New Zealand new cars that are approved by their manufacturers for operation on 5 percent and 10 percent blends of ethanol fuel.
“Gull has led the way in New Zealand with the introduction of E10 and the other fuel suppliers are expected to follow, probably with the option of an E5 blend,” said Kerr.
“We’ve taken the opportunity, in consultation with out members, to provide a list of models which are suitable of operating on either E5 or E10. It should be noted that any model which is approved to run on E10 can also safely be operated on E5, but the reverse is not so.”
The list is confined to vehicles which were originally registered as new vehicles in New Zealand. “In the case of any vehicle which was imported as a used vehicle from Japan, only a 3 percent blend of ethanol (E3) is approved by the manufacturer,” said Kerr.
“This is because ethanol fuel has never been used in Japan and many fuel system components in cars designed for use in that country differ from those used on export-specification models.”
As Mitsubishi Motors CEO and MIA President John Leighton pointed out to me at a recent function, there is no specific data available from Japan on the use of E3.
 By supplying E10 in a 98 Octane formula that can be used by many New Zealand new vehicles sold here, Gull have cleverly circumnavigated any issues for owners of Japanese used imports, they can still buy their Gull 91 petrol in complete confidence that they will not suffer any issues.
Gull Petroleum’s lubrication partner the French based ELF company has considerable expertise in providing quality oils for people who use the E10 fuel. ELF’s lubrication expertise is derived from having been the oil supplier to Formula One racing teams for thirty five years, and locally they have distribution points in Christchurch and Tauranga to service their growing Kiwi customer base.    n
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