Monday, 23 July 2007
Cave* Carnie
DEAR Dave Carnie, the environmental reporter for the Daily News in Durban, is again up on his hobby horse -- taking a swipe at the oil industry, this time using ammunition supplied by " a report sponsored by the Netherlands Institute for South Africa and (coyly) an environmental watchdog body in KwaZulu-Natal".
Why, Spigot wonders, is this watchdog so shy of being named? Could it be that the dog in question is that pillar of rationality, GroundWorks -- the organisation that makes its living screaming abuse at the industry in South Durban, thus ensuring a continuing supply of Euros to its coffers?
"South African petrol remains almost as dirty and poisonous as ever, despite the introduction of "clean" unleaded petrol over the past few years, writes our intrepid reporter -- forgetting to mention Shell and BP's investment of R700 million in making Sapref completely lead-free, and failing to differentiate between the Engen Refinery, which produces benzene, and Sapref which does not, and failing to tell the public that Sasol uses the manganese-based additive MMT, whereas BP refineries, anywhere in the world, will not.
Spigot feels for Sapref spokesperson, Margaret Rowe, who said the company was disappointed that the new report did not incorporate most of the factual information and comments submitted by Sapref. How about taking a full page ad in the Daily News to put the matter straight?
* Latin for "Watch out for".
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2 comments:
Dear Spigot,
It may be true that ENGEN produces Benzene as a finished product but it simply extracts it from a petrol intermediate before routing the now largely benzene free intermediate to the final Petrol Pool. SAPREF has no such extraction facility (or benzene hydrogenation unit) so all its benzene ends up in the petrol tanks of the consumer where it can be argued it is much more of a danger to the public!!
Benzene in petrol
Yes, there is benzene in petrol sold in South Africa but attempts to portray this minute percentage as a danger to the public is frankly absurd (Sapref's petrol contains 1.8%, Engen's 2.08% -- unless you believe that we are all petrol sniffers.
To state the obvious: Petrol is dangerous stuff. It is designed to explode in engines. It contains additives that make our cars' engines work better. It's a chemical cocktail all right but it is only dangerous if you drink it, sniff it, or wash in it. If you are stupid enough to do all three, it's your look out.
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