This report presented by the Commission represents a consolidation of the eleventh year of Member States’ submissions under Directive 98/70/EC, summarising the quality of petrol and diesel used for road transport in the EU for 2012.
The Directive also stipulates that Member States are required to report, using a reporting template, summaries of the quality of fuels sold in their territories. All Member States receive a reporting template in order to include all pertinent details to enable a European wide analysis and comparison of the results of the fuel quality monitoring undertaken in Member States. The report notes that there is a clear improvement on the submissions of reports received within the deadline compared with 2009 and 2010, but a slight decline regarding 2011, when 21 Members States reported on time.
The main findings of this report are as follows:
Fuel sales in the Europe: fuel sales in 2012 were heavily weighted toward diesel with 242 829 million litres of diesel fuel sold compared to 109 328 million litres of petrol fuel sales.
Since 2004 petrol sales have continued to decline and 2012 saw another year when petrol sales were less than in the previous year. Diesel also declined for the third year in a row.
Total fuel sales in 2012 were less than sales in 2011 seeing a decrease in both petrol (reduction of 7 565 million litres) and diesel (reduction of 2 398 million litres) sales resulting in an overall total decrease of 9 963 million litres of automotive road fuels sold.
Fuel availability 2012: one of the main facts of 2012 is that RON 91 has almost disappeared from the market, now only being sold in four countries, with Denmark alone having any significant presence. E10 is only sold in three Member States: France, Finland and Germany.
Some general points can be noted as regards the quality and the types of fuel sold by the Member States:
Fuel monitoring: the report notes that in 2012, all Member States have complied with the fuel specifications that require road fuels to contain less than 10 ppm sulphur content. In addition, Member States have begun to report fuels with added ethanol, which is a reporting requirement from 1 January 2011.
The monitoring of fuel quality in 2012 shows that the specifications for petrol and diesel laid down in Directive 98/70/EC are in general met and very few deviations from the relevant provisions were identified. Even if there is an improvement in the way Member States meet their reporting and monitoring obligations and in their fuel quality monitoring systems, in some cases they are still not attaining the expected level sampling.
As cases of non-compliance are relatively rare and Member States generally take action to remove non-compliant fuel from sale, the Commission is not aware of any negative repercussions on vehicle emissions or engine functioning due to these exceedances. The Commission urges Member States to continue to take action to ensure full compliance so that such problems do not arise in the future.