CARB's 'designated equivalent limits' formula for CARB diesel also includes a cetane term

Diesel Fuel News, June 23, 2003

We inadvertently omitted the 53 cetane number minimum from our chart describing California Air Resources Board's newly proposed list of parameters for qualifying "equivalent" CARB diesel (see Diesel Fuel News 6/9/03, p4). This "equivalent" CARB diesel is the average of CARB diesel fuels sold in California today, and it would be modified in future to include the 15-ppm sulfur cap once CARB-ULSD limits take effect in mid-2006.

Here's the "equivalent" recipe for CARB-diesel parameters, under the proposed scheme:

Property     Limit        Test Method

Aromatics    Up to 21     D5186-96 (*)
(wt. %)

PAH          Up to 3.5    D5186-96
(wt.%)

API gravity  36.9 (min.)  D287-82

Cetane       53 (min.)    D613-84

Nitrogen     500 (max.)   D4629-96
(ppmw)

Sulfur       -- 160 ppm   D2262-94 (500
(ppm)        (max)        ppm);
             -- 15 ppm    D5453-93 (15-
             (max in      ppm)
             2006)

* as supplemented by CARB

Source: CARB