⚠ Warning! This post may cause drowsiness; do not read if you are about to drive or operate heavy machinery.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jerry
ALL UK Fuels have 5% ethanol evenV Power , Esso and BP 97 ultimate as do all the cheap supemarket
petrol , its not legal to sell zero ethanol fuel in UK
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This is not in fact the case. There is no legislation in place forbidding the sale of ethanol free petrol; quite the contrary in fact.
The laws governing the sale of fuel are contained in The Motor Fuels (Composition and Content) Regulations 1999 (as amended
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2...ulation/4/made and
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2...ulation/3/made).
UK fuel has to meet BS EN228 and the BSI approved the sale of petrol with up to 10% ethanol content in March 2013.
At that time, the government recognised that there were still a large number of vehicles on the road that were not compatible with fuel with a 10% ethanol content.
Consequently, they made it a legal requirement for fuel suppliers to provide a low ethanol alternative in the form of super unleaded. By law, the ethanol content of this "protection grade" fuel must not be greater than 5% by volume.
Note that only the upper limit is subject to legislation, there is no lower limit. So, if the supplier wants to offer completely ethanol-free super unleaded, there is no legal reason why they cannot do so.
This legal requirement to provide protection grade fuel was originally to run until 31 December 2013 but was subsequently extended to the end of 2016. This extension was announced in November 2013 so, as it's due to expire shortly, you would hope that an update would be forthcoming soon.
I've always used Esso super unleaded as I understood that it was ethanol free. But that was based on information from a couple of years back so may have changed. Next time I fill up, I'll test a sample and see how much, if any, ethanol it actually contains.
Watch this space...