Avgas Replacement: Bumbling Along

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I think if you explained to someone outside of aviation that, by the time we’re all done, it will have taken 10 years to develop a new, unleaded, high-octane aviation gasoline, they’d believe you to be making it all up. And that doesn’t count 30 years of half-serious research on the topic hardly worthy of the label “research.”

I am occasionally asked by worried owners if I really think there will be an unleaded alternative or if the EPA will relent on lead or that the unthinkable will occur: No fuel will emerge. No, the EPA is not going to relent and yes, there will be a fuel. Getting the final approvals and getting it to market won’t be pretty, however.

At Sun ‘n Fun this week, Swift’s Chris D’Acosta briefed us on the company’s progress toward its alternative fuel and tomorrow, we’ll have a report from GAMI on its G-100, which is percolating along outside the FAA’s formal Piston Alternative Fuels Initiative process, a cumbersome cert project that seems, in my estimation, to have overcomplicated and extended the time necessary to vet and field a fuel. For instance, the initial phase of FAA qualification yielded two fuels, one from Swift and one from Shell. These will still need nearly another three years of testing before receiving fleetwide approval. Just for comparison, back the clock up from when Apollo 11 landed on the moon and three years gets you to the first docked spacecraft, a modest achievement indeed. Some people in the industry say, well, this is complicated. I guess. I prefer to think it’s the sum of ambiguous government regulation and lack of industry-wide commitment. Welcome to the GA Village of the Zombies.

Still, in our own bumbling, half-serious way, we’ll get to a new fuel. I was discussing this at Sun ‘n Fun with my friend Paul Millner, who recently retired from the Big Oil refining business. Both of us noted that several of the big players, including Chevron, Phillips and Exxon, seemed to think avgas wasn’t a good enough business to bother offering their own products for the FAA’s approval process. And probably isn’t a great business. Millner figures there’s $150 million in total margin in the avgas trade and, as it has been for the past 40 years, the business declines nearly every year. Not exactly a Wharton School case study for the next big thing.

That means we can be certain of one thing: The new fuel will be refined under some kind of license arrangement. Shell and Swift survived the PAFI Phase I trials, but either Shell nor Swift has leaded avgas refining capacity in the U.S. In Shell’s (and Swift’s) case, the new fuel may be refinable in a larger number of refineries that can’t now handle lead and/or by small chemical refiners who might be able to reconfigure to make a few million bucks building unleaded fuel not constrained by the need to handle lead. If the majors stay in, they’ll probably have to refine under license and getting there will likely involve some legal scuffling on patent claims and claimed prior art. That’s just how Big Oil operates, having as it does armies of highly paid lawyers and tossing out legal briefs as just another thing in the hydrocarbon stream.And although my bet is that Phillips stays in, Exxon, Chevron and BP might not necessarily. For such a piddling amount of declining margin, they may decide the liability just isn’t worth it. Can’t blame them, either. The end of the age of oil as a primary fuel is not upon us, but you can see it from here. The age of oil as a chemical cornocupia may never end.

In the U.S., there are about 140 refineries, only about a half-dozen of which can handle lead and produce 100LL. Remove lead from the equation and many more might have the capability to produce high-octane unleaded aviation fuel, which bodes well for distribution. Maybe. If they can make a few bucks at it, they will. If not, they’ll refine something else. But I’m pretty certain at least someone will push the button on that $150 million in margin. If not, can I interest you in a nice diesel?

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