Fossil Fuel Adulteration, And is South Sudan Safe from This Practices:

Fossil Fuel Adulteration, And is South Sudan Safe from This Practices:

By: Eng Paul Tethloach Dak

Once the petroleum product is produced and refined; the next step is to bring it to market in so many channels of distributions.

Gasoline, Diesel and Kerosene are some of these products we encounter on daily basis for driving our vehicles and cooking at homes. Hence, the purity of these products are of a tantamount concerns to ensure that they are not adulterated for the betterment of the environmental and air pollution.

An adulteration is an act of adding adultrant product to alter the quality of the original gasoline or diesel. This act of greed is always compels with the desire to gain more financially from the sales of petroleum by-product.

Take a case study of Oil and Gas company X, that bought at whole sale bulks of 667,000 litres of gasoline at the price of 0.75USD per a litre, by paying 500,000USD in Kenya. As a result, the Management Team/MT decided to adulterated their fuel by adding 300,000 litres of an adultrant substances which only costed this company another 150,000 USD to purchase. Once this adultrant is added to the original fuel, the total volume of the adultred gasoline raised to 967,000 litres.

Case # 1: Assume the original fuel of 667,000litres was to be sold at gas station with 0.95USD per a litre, this would generate 633,650USD. Now, deduct 500,000USD from 633,650USD, one would get a profit of 133,650USD

Case # 2: Assume the company instead decided to adulterated its fuel by increasing the volume to 967,000 litres with the addition of 300,000 litres of adultrant substance to original 667,000 lItres of gasoline. And with this in the mind of beating other competitors out in the market, the management decided to discount and sell every litre cheaply for only 0.90USD while the other competitors sell one litre for 0.95USD.

Thus doing, and after all litres were sold out, the company generated 870,000USD. Now, you deduct 500,000USD for purchasing the original gasoline and 150,000USD for purchasing adultrant substances, from 870,000USD, the profit would be : 220,000USD. Here we go, the market is booming with the case # 2 generating more income than case # 1.

Some of the Disadvantages of an Adultred Fuel:

Like an adultred woman in the family caught with another man; an adultred fuel comes with negative sides, amongst which is pipetail emission on vehicles polluting the air quality in big cities that causes health problems, as well as effects on the green gas that contributes to global warming. An adultred fuel also causes engine knocks by reducing pump efficiency, etc…

How One Detects if the Fuel is Adultred?

Governments across the world set monitoring and evaluating agents which is not only responsible for taking samples at random, but also terminate license of any company found adultering fuel, convict or jail them.

Hydrometer, densitometer, filter paper, etc…are some of the methods used to detect whether the quality of fuel is adultred or in conformity with its original quality.

In 2019, about 14 Petro stations in Kenya were found selling adulterated fuel, but thank to tougher laws being enacted which dealt with such perpetrators aggressively…

Is South Sudan immuned from fuel adulteration? Next time if one see a cheaper Petro-station, kindly think twice before rushing to fuel your vehicle there!

The writer holds MBA in Oil and Gas Management and Bachelor of Applied Petroleum Engineering Degree. And could be reached at: ptethloach@gmail.com