NEW DELHI: Much before the planned rollout of the Bharat Stage-VI (BS-VI) (the Indian equivalent to Euro VI ) fuel in the country, Delhi has become the first city to get the "world's cleanest" power source for automobiles.

Indian Oil Corp (IOC) Chairman Sanjiv Singh said that no country in the world has gone from Euro-IV to Euro-VI in three years. "This is the ultimate fuel. There presently exists no better fuel (than this) anywhere in the world," he added.

The April 2020 deadline for the country to implement BS-VI grade fuels had been advanced for Delhi to April 1, 2018, in view of the extremely high levels of air pollution in the city.

To meet the capital's annual consumption of 9.6 lakh tonnes of petrol and 12.65 lakh tonnes of diesel, Mathura refinery in Uttar Pradesh, Panipat refinery in Haryana, Bina in Madhya Pradesh and Bhatinda in Punjab have started producing Euro-VI grade fuel. About Rs 183 crore has been spent on Panipat refinery alone for producing cleaner fuel.

Read Also | Petrol, diesel prices soaring: What's stoking the fire

IOC Director (Refineries) BV Rama Gopal has said that other refineries are also in the process of being upgraded. Oil refineries will need to invest Rs 28,000 crore in upgrading petrol and diesel quality to meet cleaner fuel specifications by 2020.

IOC is the country's biggest oil firm that controls roughly half of the retail fuel market.

How Euro VI will affect the engine performance:

Euro VI fuel has less presence of sulphur compared to Euro IV. BS-IV diesel has 50 ppm (parts per million) sulphur, while BS-VI will have 10 ppm. The lower sulphur will help to reduce harmful exhaust emissions like CO (Cobalt), Hydrocarbon (HC) and NOx (Nitrogen oxides).

An engineer at an auto firm had told TOI earlier on condition of anonymity that "Using BS-VI fuel in BS-IV engines will not hurt performance but will also not give you the full benefit."

Is Euro VI better that CNG:

Oil company executives claimed that BS-VI fuels will have “better” emission than vehicles running on CNG. But auto experts said introducing BS-VI fuels without the vehicles tuned for such fuels will only yield partial benefit since these will be used by vehicles with BS-IV or BS-III engines plying on Delhi’s roads.

What about the rising fuel price:

While oil companies have invested heavily to produce cleaner fuel, consumers won't have to bear any additional cost burden for the time being, IOC's BV Rama Gopal said. Costing wise, the cleaner fuel should cost around 50 paisa a litre more, he added.

On Monday, fuel prices in Delhi hit record highs with petrol selling at Rs 73.83 a litre. While diesel price touched at an all-time high of Rs 64.69.

(With PTI inputs)

