By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Bahamians are being prevented from purchasing new diesel vehicles that have 30 per cent more engine efficiency by the ‘high sulphur content’ of the fuel sold here, auto dealers having told the Prime Minister: “We’ve got first world vehicles on third world fuel.”

Ben Albury, general manager of Bahamas Bus & Truck, also suggested to Tribune Business that the Government should make it mandatory for gasoline retailers and their suppliers to display at the pump the octane content of fuel they are selling, in a bid to protect Bahamian consumers.

Recalling the concerns presented by the Bahamas Motor Dealers Association (BMDA) to Prime Minister Perry Christie at his recent meeting with the private sector, Mr Albury said the high sulphur, low quality diesel fuel being sold in this market was one of them.

“That was part of a gamut of things,” Mr Albury told Tribune Business. “What the fuel companies are selling here is what they call high sulphur diesel, 3,500 parts per million.

“The diesel in the US is 25 parts per million, so they’re running much more cleaner and more efficient diesel engines, which has less impact environmentally and benefits our health.”

While older diesel models can run on fuel with a high sulphur content, given that they were designed for this, and also use the better-quality US variety, the newer vehicles can only run on gasoline with the lower content.

This has caused problems for Bahamians who have imported used Japanese vehicles featuring newer diesel engines. After running for six months on the diesel variety sold in the Bahamas, their engines have had to be ripped out and replaced because they’d been eaten up by sulphur.

Recalling the words of his namesake, Executive Motors president Fred Albury, to the Prime Minister at the meeting, Ben Albury told this newspaper: “Mr Albury said to Mr Christie: ‘We’ve got a first world vehicle on third world fuel’.”

“There are a lot of vehicles that we’d like to bring into this market but can’t,” said Ben Albury. “Since 2007, I’ve not been able to import Dodge Rams. That’s how far behind we are. Why are we paying so much for junk diesel?”

Describing low sulphur diesel as “a bid need”, Mr Albury told Tribune Business of the newer diesel models: “I’d venture to say they’re probably 30 per cent more efficient.”

BMDA members have met with the oil companies, such as Shell, previously over the quality of diesel fuel imports. The standard response, as previously reported to Tribune Business, was that the oil companies were studying the ‘infrastructure costs’ they would incur from its import.

“But that’s where the Government could look at reducing the taxes on low sulphur diesel,” Mr Albury added, looking at possible ways to incentivise the three oil wholesalers - Esso, RUBIS and FOCOL.

And the Bahamas Bus & Truck general manager also suggested the Government should look at introducing laws and regulations forcing the gas stations and wholesalers to display fuel quality indicators to Bahamian consumers.

Pointing out that the octane content of fuel was displayed on pumps in the US, Mr Albury said of its absence in the Bahamas: “It’s like me throwing a blanket over a car and saying it’s worth $40,000.

“It’s kind of crazy when you think about it. I’d like to see the Government pass regulations to force the companies and fuel distributors to let consumers know what the octane content is of the fuel they’re purchasing, and to bring in high quality diesel fuel.”

Mr Albury said the BMDA had discussed whether it should send fuel samples from the various gas companies away for testing, “to see who is selling the highest octane fuel”.

“We may have to start recommending to customers who’s selling the highest quality fuel, although we don’t want to have to go that route,” Mr Albury told Tribune Business.

This newspaper first revealed the ‘high sulphur content of diesel fuel’ issue earlier this year. Executive Motors’ Fred Albury said Bahamian new car dealerships were unable to import the latest North American, European and Japanese models because the high sulphur content of diesel fuel sold in this nation effectively “ate” their engines.

He added that the sulphur content in the Bahamas was 70 times’ more than US and European regulations permitted, and said: “We’re excluded from getting high efficiency diesel engines because they would not run on the fuel we have,” the Executive Motors president said.

“The last testing we had from here, it contained 3,500 sulphur particles per million (PPM). US and Europe require diesel fuel to have no more than 50 PPM.

”With diesel engines, the newer generation vehicles can be very efficient, almost as efficient as the hybrid vehicles, but we cannot get them. We cannot get those engines because of the fuel quality here. Something has to be done.”

And Andrew Barr, sales manager at Friendly Ford, said it was costing his company an extra $8,000 per vehicle to import trucks with engines attuned to fuel sold in the Bahamas.