Liaoning vehicles to switch to ethanol gas in October
(Chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2004-06-29 16:48

Liaoning will adopt ethanol gasoline in the northeast China province from the end of October to replace regular gasoline, according to a provincial government decision.

The government has chosen Tieling and Huludao as pilot cities to use ethanol gasoline beginning from the end of June, and by the end of October, the scheme will be extended to cover the whole province. By then, all gas stations and distribution units will replace normal gasoline with ethanol gasoline and supply ethanol gasoline only.

Official said that after the adoption of ethanol gasoline, existing gas stations, storage and transport facilities could still be used. Detailed implementation and regulations of ethanol gasoline usage will be announced soon.

While the distribution network will mainly be built by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), with the support of other wholesale and retail enterprises, Guo Xiuzhu, general manager of CNPC's Distribution Branch, said that they are able to cope with the need of the market after switching to ethanol gasoline.

"We invested 224 million yuan (US$27 million) last year to renovate the oil tanks and more than a thousand gas stations in Liaoning," he said. "600 of them have been completed and 549 are under reconstruction."

Guo said, prices of ethanol gasoline and normal gasoline are similar, while ethanol gasoline is more efficient.

"Experiments have shown that ethanol gasoline provides greater power and better acceleration to vehicles," said Guo. "And its comsumption is lower than normal gasoline under the same conditions."

Normal vehicles (including motorcycles) can adapt to ethanol gasoline directly without any reconfiguration, however, those vehicles which have run for more than 30,000 kilometres will need to clean up their oil-supply system beforehand.

Another benefit of ethanol gasoline is that i could help reduce car emission.

Early in February, the central government decided that the provinces of Jilin, Heilongjiang, Henan, Anhui and Liaoning, together with some cities in Hubei, Shandong and Hebei to be the pilot areas for ethanol gasoline use in the country. And the program would then be applied nationwide in the future.