The results were revealed following inspections by the Ministry of Science and Technology’s Directorate for Standards, Metrology and Quality (STAMEQ) from December 15, 2011, to early January 2012.
Bad-quality petroleum products are suspected to be among the causes of several vehicle fire cases
The inspection indicated that methanol accounted for 15.3% of inspected petrol volume at a station in Ho Tung Mau Street, Hanoi, with oxygen at 8.8%, three times higher than the regulated level.
Methanol accounted for 4.6% of the inspected petrol volume taken from a petrol station in Pham Van Hai Commune, Binh Chanh District, HCM City.
In a recent interview with Vnexpress, Nguyen Minh Bang, Deputy Head of the STAMEQ’s Standard Department, said like other countries, Vietnam had no regulation on methanol content in petrol, therefore, all petroleum traders are were prohibited from adding methanol into petrol.
Only E5 bio-petrol is allowed to contain methanol with content accounting for less than 5% of the total, he added.
Pho Duc Son, Head of the Vietnam Standards and Quality Institute, said E5 bio-petrol had alcohol, therefore Vietnam did have regulations on the use of methanol for this kind of fuel, noting that, “the negative impact of methanol on vehicles are obvious, so, Vietnam does not need to have any regulation on this substance being added to petrol. Any trader which sells methanol-laced petrol will be punished.”
The STAMEQ has recently also found water in two petrol samples taken from two stations in HCM City using fuel from oil tanker No. 57K-8275 which was discovered transporting poor-quality petrol as revealed by Thanh Nien reporters.
The inspection showed that the truck, under the management of Vietnam National Petroleum Corporation (Petrolimex) visited Hoang Quoc Viet Street illegal petrol way station to have its fuel adulteration and then later carried the fuel to different stations managed by Petrolimex.
However, these two samples remained safe because they do not contain either acetone or methanol.
Deputy Director of Goods Quality Management Department under the STAMEQ said it was not sure that the samples were from the oil tanker because it was taken not at the time of the fuel delivery.
According to Tuan, there was not enough evidence to confirm that recent vehicle fires were due to bad-quality petroleum products.
In the coming time, the Ministry of Science and Technology will announce the result of petroleum inspections nationwide.
Cities and provinces nationwide had recorded a total of 89 vehicle fires in 2011, leaving two dead and two others injured. Hanoi has seen at least 42 vehicle fires since December, 2010 through to mid-December of 2011.