QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF PETROL AND DIESEL FUELS IN SELECTED FILLING STATIONS IN BLANTYRE CITY, MALAWI

Malawi relies much on petrol and diesel fuels for its transportation sector. The increased population has been associated with increasing number of vehicles, therefore call for high demand for petrol and diesel fuels. Because of this, automobile fuel quality is becoming a subject of concern across the world, more likely in developing countries. A complaint of fuel contamination (which is addition of external materials to petrol and diesel to increase volume) at the point of the sale or during transportation is so common in many countries.
Contaminated fuels can lead to health and environmental problems, reduced performance and lifetime of vehicle engines and other components of automobile. Some recent studies on analysis of petroleum fuel contamination does not give a clear scope of what is happening at the fuel selling stations within and outside Blantyre. This research study presents therefore the quality assessment of petrol and diesel fuels from selected filling stations in Blantyre. Seven fuels samples each for petrol and diesel fuels making fourteen in total were collected from Oil Marketing Companies which include, Total energies, Energem, Puma, Mount Meru, Petroda, Engen as well as Simso. Fuel parameters like density, octane number, cetane rating and flash point of the sampled fuels were analysed in the laboratory using fuel analyser and Energy Dispersive Ray Fluorescence measured sulphur content. The results were compared to the Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS), and the results indicated that there were variations in some fuel properties among all the Oil Marketing Companies. The densities of almost petrol and diesel fuels among all the filling stations were within the MBS range, except about 29% which were outside the range. The flash points of petrol fuel of about 71% out of all filling stations were outside the MBS range, indicating that some stations add contaminants.
Flash point for diesel, almost 57% out of all filling stations were outside the range The octane number for all filling stations, nearly 68% were within the MBS range for petrol. The cetane number of about 68% out of all the filling stations were within the MBS range. The sulphur content of almost all the fuels were found to be outside MBS range. It is therefore recommended that the government of Malawi should ensure that all the oil marketing companies are operating with specified sulphur content and flash point by MBS, and that there should be consistency implementations of all the standard regulations.