On September 3, Aliko Dangote, the president of Dangote Group, explained why the petrol produced at the Dangote refinery was clearer than the one available in the Nigerian market.
Dangote also stated that his clearer petrol was more environmentally friendly and could help reduce health issues caused by the air pollution from the exhaust pipes of petrol-driven engines.
“This is a sample of our petrol,” Dangote said while journalists.
“It might be different in colour. You might think it looks different, but this is the real thing.
“You will now have good petrol and the engines of your vehicles will last longer. You won’t have engine problems like we used to. It won’t happen at all.
“The quality here is as good as anywhere in the world, US, America (sic)… We will make sure nobody beats us on quality.”
Dangote’s comments on his refinery’s clear and colourless petrol has, however, led to conversations about the quality of petrol that has been in circulation in Nigeria.
Does this then mean that the “yellowish” petrol Nigerians have been using in the past is of lower quality?
More importantly, is the quality of the commodity called petrol determined by its colour?
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THE COLOUR AND QUALITY OF FUEL
According to a journal published by IntechOpen, a platform that publishes scientific and academic research contents, “the quality of a fuel is associated with its fitness for use”.
“The minimum requirements for which are given by its specifications, defined as a set of characteristics and their respective limits, which are required to ensure its good performance in engines,” a part of the journal stated.
“Regular gasoline, additised gasoline and premium gasoline can be told apart visually by their colour.
“Regular gasoline ranges from colourless to yellow, while the other two are coloured with a dye, which may be of any colour but blue (which is reserved for aviation fuel).”
COLOUR NOT A MARKER OF QUALITY
Rex Energy Corporation, a US-based independent energy company, states that the colour of gasoline or petrol is transparent by nature.
The energy company, however, added that, depending on additives, the product can also be made available for public use in colours like red, green, yellow, brown, blue, pink, or even purple.
This is because petrol manufacturers are in the habit of adding fuel dyes to the commodity in a bid to classify it into different gas types.
From all the checks FIJ made in verifying the comments made by Dangote on his company’s fuel, nothing could be found to suggest that the colourless petrol is of superior or less inferior quality to others.
This also means that the colour of petrol is not necessarily a marker of its inferior or superior quality.
A laboratory test confirms the quality of petrol after considering many properties including its volatility, flammability, carbon residue and distillation profile. Petrol could be colourless or pale yellow without losing its great quality.
