The Fuel-Pulse program from Bell Fuel & Tank Services gives customers the right tools and information to deal with the fact that today’s stored fuels are nothing like yesterday’s stored fuels.
If today’s fuels weren’t substantively different from yesterday’s fuels, we probably wouldn’t be having nearly the kind of discussions we are having. The major changes to stored diesel fuel stem from three things: the reduction in sulfur content, changes to the petroleum fuel composition, and growing presence of biodiesel. These changes have made diesel fuel much better for the environmental, but we also have to acknowledge that this important came with a price tag - a concurrent change in the fuel’s ability to resist, or tendency to have, certain kinds of problems.
Today’s diesel fuels are significantly more prone to developing microbe problems than stored fuels of decades past. The removal of sulfur and the low caps on aromatic content have created a fuel that burns cleaner, but which has very little resistance to microbial growth (both sulfur and aromatic molecules tend to inhibit microbial growth). Today’s diesel fuels attract and hold more water. They’re also made with cracked petroleum feedstocks that weren’t as common back in the day.
All of these changes, put together, mean today’s diesel fuels are more prone to filter plugging, corrosion, engine deposit formation, and going unstable in a much shorter period of time than the fuels of yesterday.
Gone are the days when taking care of stored fuel meant just set it and forget it. These fuels need proper condition monitoring, to stay ahead of the kind of fuel changes that aren’t a matter of if, they’re a matter of when.
The Fuel-Pulse program was created to make best practice condition monitoring easy and cost-effective for stored fuel managers and users. To help you keep your finger on the pulse of your fuel.
