Oil refiners may start selling BS VI fuel ahead of govt deadline

The Oil Ministry and State-run refineries will start selling the Bharat Stage VI (BS-VI) grade fuel in petrol pumps starting September 2019, six months ahead of the government's April 2020 deadline, reports the Mint.The new more environment-friendly fuel will be brought out in advance, as it takes several months to completely phase out the existing fuel which has high sulphur content. This is also being done to ensure that refiners don't miss out on the crucial deadline of April 2020. Auto makers have started tweaking car engines to meet the new requirements.Refiners want to completely do away with the existing fuel soon, before its gets mixed up with the BS VI grade fuel, thus managing to still retain a high sulphur content in the fuel.In the new BS VI norms, the sulphur content in the fuel will be brought down to 10 parts per million (PPM), said the State-run refiner Indian Oil Corporation. Around the year 2000, the diesel that was being sold had around 10,000 PPM, it added.An analyst told Mint that the biggest challenge for the industry is to cope up with the higher costs due to advanced technology that has to be installed to meet the change in norms.