BS-6 fuel / CLEAN FUEL

BS-6 fuel / CLEAN FUEL

vaibhav patil
vaibhav0222@gmail.com

We need more hydrocarbon molecules in our cars, but less carbon dioxide in the air

Europe came up with Euro emission norms in 1993 with Euro 1 standards and this was upgraded from time to time and the present standards are Euro 6 introduced in 2014.

In India, the first standard for emissions was introduced in 2000 named India 2000 which was subsequently changed to Bharat Stage or BS. Currently India uses BS4 norms which was implemented across the country by 2017.

Bharat Stage Norms

Bharat Stage norms are standards set by the government to regulate emission of air pollutants from motor vehicles. The norms set the limit for the release of air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, particulate matter (PM) and sulphur oxides from vehicles using internal combustion engines. The Bharat stage norms are based on Euro norms.

Why BS6 is IMP

Indian government has issued an ultimatum which states that only BS6 vehicles can be sold and registered post 31 March 2020.

History:-

The Indian government rolled out BS norms first in 2000 and subsequently its advanced iterations came into effect in the form of BS2 and BS3 in the year 2001 and 2005 respectively. However, the imposition of BS4 turned out to be a game-changer as it was for the first time that the country capped emission levels equivalent to global emission standards, i.e., BS4 became equivalent to Euro4. In the year 2016, the Government of India decided to skip BS5 norms and directly shift from BS4 to BS6 by April 2020, thereby signaling a major shift in the country’s transportation policy. Some of the major reasons that helped the political dispensation to go ahead with this bold move include factors like dangerously rising vehicular pollution, India’s commitment to reverse global climate change, and rising environmental awareness in the country

Emission Standard Reference Year of Introduction 

1. India 2000                         EURO 1                            2000 

2. Bharat Stage II (BS2)        EURO 2                           2005 

3. Bharat Stage III (BS3)       EURO 3                          2010 

4. Bharat Stage IV (BS4)       EURO 4                          2017 

5. Bharat Stage V (BS5)         EURO 5 To be skipped 

6. Bharat Stage VI (BS6)        EURO 6                            2020

Difference between BS-IV and BS-VI Norms

1. •The extent of sulphur is the major difference between the Bharat stage IV and Bharat stage VI norms.

2. •Bharat stage IV fuels contain 50 parts per million (ppm) sulphur whereas Bharat Stage-VI grade fuel only has 10 ppm sulphur.

3. •Bharat Stage VI will bring PM in diesel cars down by 80 per cent when compared to Bharat stage IV.

4. •Bharat Stage VI will bring down nitrogen oxides from diesel cars by 70 per cent and in petrol cars by 25 per cent.

5. In 2015 India had decided to leapfrog to BS-VI emission norm compliant petrol and diesel from April 2020, from the BS-IV grade by skipping BS-V norms. While the deadline for the rest of the country stands, the same for Delhi, which is choking on thick toxic smog, was brought forward.

FACTS

1. Delhi becomes first city to roll-out BS-VI fuel

2. Other cities in NCR like Noida, Gurugram, Ghaziabad and Faridabad as well as other 13 major cities, including  Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune will roll-out cleaner BS-VI grade fuel from January 1 2019. 

3. BS-VI fuel will be rolled out in rest of the country by April 2020. 

4. By switching to BS-VI, India will join league of US, Japan and European Union, which follow Euro Stage VI emission norms.

What is BS6

1. Emission Standards are emission regulations put forth by the government of India to regulate the output of pollutants from motor vehicles.  

2. The standards are set by the Central Pollution Control Board under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. 

3. It was first introduced in 2000 with the moniker ‘India 2000’. 

4. BS2 and BS3 followed later in 2005 and 2010 while we are currently following BS4 norms which came to place in 2017. 

5. Looking at the timeline, you’ll see that the gap between different standards are decreasing at an alarming rate.

6. Not much of a shocker here given the increase in pollution and the surge in the number of vehicles on the road. 

7. BS6 is the sixth iteration of the norm which, in comparison, is a substantial leap from its predecessor (also because we are skipping BS5). 

8. BS6 norms are relatively stricter to help cut down emissions by a good margin.  

9. BS6 compliant petrol vehicles are required to be 25 per cent cleaner by reducing NOx (Nitrogen Oxide) numbers from 80mg/km to 60mg/km. 

10. For diesels, the BS6 norms aims at reducing three pollutants -- HC (Hydrocarbons) + NOx, PM (Particulate Matter) and NOx reduction by 43, 68 and 82 per cent respectively. 

11. The BS6-compliant engines make use of modern technology to attain the above mentioned targets. 

12. Some of these include Lean NOx traps (LNTs), selective catalytic reduction (SCR) units, and diesel particulate filters (DPFs).

Problems in Implementing the BS6 standard

1. The car manufacturers will have to invest heavily in order to revamp their existing infrastructure and upgrade their engines to meet BS6 emission norms. The investment is especially consuming in case of diesel vehicles with prices of diesel cars are expected to shoot up at least by 30-40% of their present cost. This means a diesel hatchback costing Rs 6 lakh at present will be retailing around Rs 8 lakh in its BS6 avatar which might make it financially unviable for customers – after all, spending 8 lakh on small diesel car doesn’t sound like a good idea, especially when one can buy a three-box petrol version at the same price.

2. On the customer side, prospective buyers are holding back on their investments and have decided to delay their purchase decision until the next year – it’s natural for buyers to wait for few months and then purchase BS6 car next year than to spend on BS4 cars now.

3. trouble for manufacturers with unsold BS4 cars stocks have started piling up,

4. Increase in the Price of the vehicle:- 

Starting with bikes, Honda and Suzuki say their bikes will become more expensive by 10 to 15 per cent. 

Moving on to cars, expect a rise of 2 to 3 per cent (Rs 20,000-30,000) for petrol cars and 8 to 10 per cent (Rs 80,000-1,00,000) for diesel cars. 

This premium comes as a result of all the R&D and improvements made to the powerplants to make them comply with the stringent BS6 norms.

5. Like automobile manufacturers, oil marketing companies are also investing heavily in upgrading their refineries to produce BS6 fuel. 

6. This is expected to have an inflationary effect on the prices of petrol and diesel with customers needing to shell out more for refueling their BS6 cars.

7. Kia claims to have run the Seltos’ BS6-compliant engines on BS4 fuel for more than 1 lakh kilometres without any hiccups.

8. Running BS6-compliant vehicles on BS4 fuel could be detrimental to their engines.

9. Once the BS-VI emission norms come into force, customers will have to shell extra bucks to buy a vehicle.

10. The Central government has mandated that all vehicle manufacturers, both two-wheelers and four-wheelers, should manufacture, sell and register only BS6 (BSVI) vehicles from 1 April 2020.

Benefits due to BS6:-

1. The BS6 will bring down the emission of nitrogen oxides as much as 70% in the case of diesel vehicles while in petrol cars, 25% reduction in nitrogen oxides will be achieved. 

2. The BS6 standards will also mandate all vehicles to have an on-board diagnostic (OBD) and real driving emission (RDE) system to help track the emissions on a real-time basis.

3. In addition, diesel vehicles will have to mandatorily integrate advanced technologies such as selective catalytic reduction (SCR) and particulate filter (PF) to further reduce their emission levels. In sum, the BS6 will involve a host of mechanical and technological changes in vehicles that will help cars to emit less and emerge as cleaner vehicles.

4. BS-VI fuel will bring down sulphur by 5 times from the current BS-IV levels – this is an 80 percent reductionwhich makes it extremely clean. 

5. It will improve emissions from the existing fleet, even from the older vehicles on road. 

6. BS-VI is as clean as CNG or even cleaner than CNG in some respects

7. According to a Centre for Science & Environment study, air pollution takes 10,000-30,000 lives in Delhi every year. 

8. early migration to BS-VI fuels in the National Capital of Delhi will help in saving thousands of precious lives by bringing down vehicular pollution significantly

9. manufacturers are offering huge discounts on several models Almost all automakers Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Tata, Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, Mahendra, and Skoda are offering discounts ranging up to Rs 5 lakh depending on the model and vehicle manufacturer also offering extended warranty along with their cars.

Regions in India where BS-6 FUEL is used

1. The National Capital Region (NCR) is among the early adopters of the cleaner fuel – from April 1, 2019, parts of NCR, including four districts of Rajasthan (Alwar, Bharatpur, Karauli and Dhaulpur), eight districts of Uttar Pradesh (Meerut, Muzzafarnagar, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar, Baghpat, Hapur, Bulandshar and Shamli) and Agra city started the switch to BS6 fuel.

2. As of October 1, 2019, the remaining districts in NCR, which include Faridabad, Gurugram, Mahendraghar, Rewari, Jhajjar, Palwal and Mewat, have also begun receiving BS6 grade petrol and diesel at outlets of Indian Oil Corporation ltd. (IOCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL). These seven districts have an average monthly volume of around 6,50,000 metric tonnes with 13 oil bulk locations, which have now been converted from BS4 to BS6 specifications.

3. In addition, the IOCL refineries in Panipat and Mathura started providing BS6 grade petrol and diesel to meet the more stringent BS6 emission norms, well before the original target which was 2020.

Countries Using BS-6:-

Companies Involved  in the BS-6 clean FUEL

Bharat Petroleum has taken proactive steps to make its Refineries to produce petrol and diesel with compliance to BS VI Grade.

the Hyundai Grand i10 Nios with the BS-VI engine is launched in India at Rs 4.99 Lakh.

INVESTMENT:-

BPCL Group Refineries have together invested Rs. 5,969 Crores to upgrade our Refineries to produce BS VI Grade fuel, using latest technology available globally, which has also created direct & indirect employment of 1,474 thousand man-days.

Efforts of BPCL in  BS -6 clean energy fuel

So, statistically speaking, as of now, BPCL Group Refineries are competent enough to produce 7MMT BS VI compliant Petrol and 18.9 MMT of BS VI compliant Diesel  

This constitutes approximately 24% of Petrol and 23% of Diesel consumed by the nation last year. 

Production capacity of BS VI Petrol & Diesel by BPCL Group Refineries in Financial Year 2019-20      is given below –

Refinery BS VI Grade Petrol (MMT) BS VI Grade Diesel (MMT) 

Mumbai Refinery 2.4 6.2 

Kochi Refinery 3.0 8.1 

Bina Refinery 1.3 3.9 

Numaligarh Refinery 0.3 0.7

BS6 Sedan Cars:

1. •Maruti Suzuki Dzire

2. •Hyundai Elantra

3. •Mercedes Benz E-Class

4. •Audi A6

5. BS6 Hatchback Cars:

6. •Maruti Suzuki Alto 800

7. •Maruti Suzuki S-Presso

8. •Hyundai Grand i10 Nios

9. •Maruti Suzuki Swift

10. •Maruti Suzuki Wagon R 1.2-litre

11. •Maruti Suzuki Baleno

12. •Toyota Glanza

13. BS6 MPV Cars:

14. •Maruti Suzuki Ertiga

15. •Maruti Suzuki XL6

16. BS6 SUVs:

17. •Kia Seltos

18. •Jeep Compass

19. BS6 Crossover Cars:

20. •Maruti Suzuki XL6

21. •Maruti Suzuki S-Presso

CAFE norms:-

The Central government has proposed to introduce Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) in sync with the global auto industry. 

Under these norms, cars are expected to be 30% fuel efficient from 2022 and by the end of 2021, 

it’s expected to be increased by another 10%. Through CAFE norms, fuel efficiency will be decided on how many litres does a vehicle consume while running 100kms.