Anti-wax vs super-dery
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iii Several oil companies are about to introduce "superdervs" aimed at alleviating the persistent problem of diesel fuel waxing in cold weather — but a more satisfactory long-term solution lies in the development of wax anti-settling additives. This emerged at the recent Commercial Motor Workshop conference in Coventry where Paul Snell, fleet engineer of Anglo-Danish Food Transport presented a paper on "the guaranteed operability of dieselengined vehicles in winter."
Snell describes the introduction of super-dervs like Mobil's latest winter grade fuel with a CFPP (cold filter plugging point) of —18 deg C and a cloud point of —5 deg C (the current British Standard for winter grade fuel demands only a CFPP of —9°C) as "promising developments", but he thinks development work like that being carried out by Esso's Paramins division of WASA (wax anti-settling additive) will be more significant.
John Bullock, Shell UK Oil's senior engineer for road transport fuels who was representing the United Kingdom Petroleum Industry Association at the conference, confirms that many oil companies are now working hard on ways of preventing wax settling in diesel.
It now seems likely that the settlement of wax crystals in the bottom of bulk storage tanks, and in the tanks of vehicles parked overnight may have been responsible for more breakdowns last winter than the relatively poor cold flow performance of British Standard diesel.
No instant solution to the problem of wax settlement, especially likely to occur in the above-ground bulk storage tanks used by the majority of operators, came out of the conference, but it was generally agreed that various on-board fuel heaters could provide "a form of short-term insurance".