HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam National Petroleum Group (Petrolimex) will begin selling diesel under Euro 5 standard, the highest quality of the product in Việt Nam, from the beginning of 2018.

Trần Ngọc Năm, Petrolimex’s deputy general director, said at a meeting with the Việt Nam Automobile Association (VAMA) held in Hà Nội last week that the group would sell the diesel at 1,750 out of its 2,500 petrol stations nationwide.

In addition, it would also encourage its agencies and franchised stations to sell diesel under the Euro 5 standard.

Currently, Petrolimex is preparing the necessary conditions to ensure the implementation.

Nguyễn Đăng Phương, production and technology director of Hino Motors Việt Nam Plant, said that automobiles designed to use diesel under the Euro 2 standard, can also use diesel with higher standards, such as Euro 4 and 5.

However, the use of fuel of lower standards in automobiles using higher standard ones, could cause technical incidents due to a high sulfur content.

This could also cause serious effects such as destroying cylinder liners and engine pistons, Phương added.

He said that diesel under Euro 4 standard has not been widely sold in the market, thus making it expensive, at VNĐ430,000 (US$18) per litre. It might also need to be borrowed from the Việt Nam Registration for experiment production of automobile samples.

It is for this reason that auto producers hoped that Petrolimex would sell the diesel under Euro 4 and 5 standards as soon as possible.A representative from VAMA said they proposed to the government to terminate the selling of diesel under the Euro 2 standard, when applying diesel Euro 4 standard. The parallel sale of the two types of diesel could cause confusion for consumers.

According to a roadmap set in Decision No 49/2011/QĐ-TTg promulgated on September 1, 2011, on applying emission standard, tourism cars and buses using diesel are required to use Euro 4 from the beginning of this year and trucks are required to use diesel of Euro 4 standard from 2022. — VNS