Winter Diesel Additive

[dmr]

12 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

Davd, the refineries dont add additives to prevent waxing, they just change the blending ratios to put less 'waxing' materials in. See Cuthound's  link above which describes it quite well. A number of refineries also do an 'intermediate grade for the month before and month after the winter 'period'. If you buy your diesel from somewhere that turns it over fast, ie a hire boat base then you may be able to ascertain if you are getting 'winter' diesel but most of the hire boat bases have given up by end of October so they may not be getting any of the 'cold' stuff.

I filled my tank up with diesel in September so unfortunately have 'summer' stuff in the tank now. Not too bothered as it is very near the water line so is likely not to drop to very low temps like the exposed fuel tanks on Alan's tractor.

I am sure there are additives you can buy but I wouldnt bother.

But I believe that some fuel wholesalers do put in some additive. I also believe that most road diesel has additives but I don't know at what stage these go in. There are some "fuel experts" who believe that it should be compulsory to include additive in all road fuels.  The fuel additive aftermarket has got a slightly bad "snake oil" reputation but the biggest part of the business is supplying  good additive that really work in bulk directly to the fuel supply chain. Reputable aftermarket companies like Marine16 are not making their own additives, they are just buying from these big additive manufacturers and repackaging for the aftermarket.

The big question is does red diesel on the cut already contain sufficient additive or do we need to add more? The wisdom on this forum is that red diesel is just white with a red dye. An hour or two playing with Google casts some doubts on this. 

 

................Dave

[Dr Bob]

2 hours ago, dmr said:

But I believe that some fuel wholesalers do put in some additive. I also believe that most road diesel has additives but I don't know at what stage these go in. There are some "fuel experts" who believe that it should be compulsory to include additive in all road fuels.  The fuel additive aftermarket has got a slightly bad "snake oil" reputation but the biggest part of the business is supplying  good additive that really work in bulk directly to the fuel supply chain. Reputable aftermarket companies like Marine16 are not making their own additives, they are just buying from these big additive manufacturers and repackaging for the aftermarket.

The big question is does red diesel on the cut already contain sufficient additive or do we need to add more? The wisdom on this forum is that red diesel is just white with a red dye. An hour or two playing with Google casts some doubts on this. 

 

................Dave

I cant speak for all refineries but I do know what the exBP refinery in Scotland did (now owned by Ineos and China!). The refinery blend up the gas oil by filling a tank with the blend components (various refinery streams)...trying to put the worst streams (cheapest) they can in but still meeting the specs. Once the finished tank is passed on QC it is available to pump to the distribution terminal. The one at the refinery then gets this unadulterated gas oil feed. If a BP road tanker comes in, then this is filled with the gas oil plus the BP additive package. An Esso tanker comes in and that is filled with the gas oil plus Esso additive package. This is why Exxon can claim on their forecourt pumps that their diesel is the best in the world etc. It is exactly the same fuel you get in the next door BP garage BUT it has a different additive package. Not sure what happens when the Tesco or Asda tankers come in? They must have access to a good package. Ditto fuel that is going to Red Diesel. Red dye can be added at that stage in the terminal but it is also likely that some will go out without, for red dye or other additives to be added by small companies at a later stage.

Bottom line, it is impossible to know what additives are going to be in the diesel you buy from your local canal supplier. It will be the same fuel as is going in many cars in the local region.

[Guest]

23 hours ago, Ace 01 said:

Hi.  During the winter season road diesel has an additive put in by the refineries to prevent waxing in freezing temperatures. I assume that red diesel also has a similar additive. As most of the diesel in my tank is from the summer cruising period and topped up prior to mooring my boat in the Marina for winter then that additive will not be present. Is there an after market anti waxing additive that can be added to winterise the existing fuel?

 

Cheers

 

David

When we were on the cut we had some of the worst and coldest winters in recent memory. We also used to use our boat during the winter months (unlike some) and when using 'red' TBH I never gave this a thought but then neither did we have an issue with the diesel 'waxing up'. 

[dmr]

58 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

I cant speak for all refineries but I do know what the exBP refinery in Scotland did (now owned by Ineos and China!). The refinery blend up the gas oil by filling a tank with the blend components (various refinery streams)...trying to put the worst streams (cheapest) they can in but still meeting the specs. Once the finished tank is passed on QC it is available to pump to the distribution terminal. The one at the refinery then gets this unadulterated gas oil feed. If a BP road tanker comes in, then this is filled with the gas oil plus the BP additive package. An Esso tanker comes in and that is filled with the gas oil plus Esso additive package. This is why Exxon can claim on their forecourt pumps that their diesel is the best in the world etc. It is exactly the same fuel you get in the next door BP garage BUT it has a different additive package. Not sure what happens when the Tesco or Asda tankers come in? They must have access to a good package. Ditto fuel that is going to Red Diesel. Red dye can be added at that stage in the terminal but it is also likely that some will go out without, for red dye or other additives to be added by small companies at a later stage.

Bottom line, it is impossible to know what additives are going to be in the diesel you buy from your local canal supplier. It will be the same fuel as is going in many cars in the local region.

Yes!   It used to be said that the supermarket fuel was cheaper because they it not contain any additive but I dunno if that is true. There are some research project results on the internet that do suggest that additives prevent or reduce some injector deposits and these deposits can give significant reduction in fuel economy and increase in emissions which is why some people say additives should be compulsory. I guess we are talking global fuel use here rather than just the UK. One UK fuel disturber offers red diesel with an additive pack to bring it up to road diesel spec which does infer that their standard red diesel is not to road spec (unless its all a marketing con?), its all on the www if you have a quick search. Some canalside sellers also add their own additive, this might be just a biocide but I know that one adds Fuelset and that's a real pain as some of us really don't like the idea of emulsifiers in our fuel.

 

Waxing does appear very rare on the cut, maybe because the water moderates the temperature range, I'm surprised as many boats must spend winter in the marina with a tank full of summer diesel. In fact waxing in general appears less common than it was a few years ago. When I was younger the older blokes at work were always talking about waxing in winter.

 

On a related note, I read somewhere that about 20% of the mass of typical oil is the additives, so anybody who thinks additives are not important is probably wrong.

 

..............Dave