Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

91UL / UL91 / 96UL / UL96 / UL98 etc (merged thread)

now pay more for UL91 than I do for 100LL. Put simply, I will sell each fuel with the same margin (percentage) and the customer can decide what he shoves in his aircraft.

Good for you Dave. If others follow your lead it may make Total reconsider their pricing.

Gloucester UK (EGBJ)

UL91 costing more than 100LL

Just read somewhere a report from an airport manager, saying his last batch of TOTAL UL91 cost him £0.16/litre more than 100LL.

What is the point?

The only case I am aware of is engines which "should" avoid lead, which is basically the Rotax.

Either TOTAL are running some extremely subtle marketing exercise, or they hoped that they would have trapped a number of airfields into selling 91UL and not 100LL (TOTAL did give away free bowsers) and now they are trying to screw them, not realising that the said airfields can just drop UL91...

Can anybody guess what is going on?

Are Rotax owners really willing to pay maybe £0.20 (€0.24) extra for lead free fuel?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

There is no requirement for Rotaxen to avoid leaded fuel. The certified versions are also certified for 100LL. One is supposed to use a different type of oil, though, and to change the oil more frequently to, to rinse away lead deposit from the valve seats.

But I was always a bit wary about his 91UL thing - after all, Total is not a charity.

EBZH Kiewit, Belgium

Most probably this is simply the first time 100ll prices can ever be said to be benefiting from an economy of scale. Even with free bowsers, it's going to be more expensive to transport and stock UL91 due to the relatively small volumes sold.

Exactly. I just think TOTAL can't sell the stuff for any less and still make some money. UL91 does not profit from any economies of scale (as opposed to Mogas and even -to a certain degree- 100LL), yet is more expensive to produce than Mogas.

And no, if UL91 price really surpasses the price of 100LL in most places, sales will certainly go to almost zero. After all, most Rotax and ultralight flyers have access (one way or anothet) to much cheaper Mogas.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

One problem with car petrol is that until you have enough demand to get a road-legal bowser, or a fixed tank pump (even more €€€), one just cannot imagine the typical GA field scene where a load of people are backing pickup trucks to their planes and slowly and laboriously unloading 10-20 jerrycans of petrol into their plane.

Not if you are trying to take a classy girl out

That market is going to be limited to very small machines, until some very big change happens.

I still think TOTAL were hoping to shaft 100LL availability, and thankfully failed.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Well, yes, if my home field were to have UL91 on tap I might be prepared to pay a bit more than for the mogas I now haul in in jerrycans. But even though it might be for free, a bowser for 91UL would be less attractive to the a/d operator than adding a mogas pump, even if only for the choice of suppliers. Nobody offering a commodity likes to be dependent on one single source.

Sadly, neither is going to happen, as we can only get permission for one single large fuel tank.

And UL91 at prices higher than 100LL will indeed mean its commercial end.

@Peter: aircraft like mine have an economy of downscale: two 20-litre jerrycans are sufficient for 3 hours Hobbs; and the average classy girl doesn't even look at the humble tube-and-rag contraption.

EBZH Kiewit, Belgium

the average classy girl doesn't even look at the humble tube-and-rag contraption.

That limits the utility value, drastically, don't you think?

I say that only half tongue in cheek

But seriously, let's say you keep a road-legal Mogas bowser. How exactly do you fill it up? You can't take it to a normal petrol station, can you? Or can you?

I see adverts for bowsers. They are not that much - under €10k for an old one. An airfield could keep one for Mogas, one for 91UL, and one for 100LL. But they don't, so why not? Perhaps because volume discounts make it uneconomical to split it so thinly.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Well, to keep things more or less tongue-in-cheek: one opts for microlight flying to keep the budget under control. That is generally not compatible with the company of classy womanfolk - been there, tried that... So it comes to a choice of flying solo (always recommended anyway with a microlight, because of the tight weight constraints) OR keeping classy company - it just depends on which option you prefer for "utility value" ...

But we better remain focused on our core business I think. Yes, some airfields here have a tank of a few hundred litres on a trailer, that they tow to the village petrol pump at need to fill up mogas. I feel quite sure they agreed on a special discount with the pump operator, too. EBAM is one example, another is my own EBZH, and I seem to remember EBHN now have one too.

EBZH Kiewit, Belgium

I thought Total where going to be on a winner with UL91.

I foolishly assumed they would price it say 25 pence per liter more than super unleaded and then due to the reduced hassle people would switch to it.

The biggest uses of AVGAS at everywhere I am familiar with are the flying schools and I suspected they would switch to it in an instant.

However it’s never been much cheaper and at 16 pence per litre MORE than avgas its doomed. The only people who I can see who would still use it are the few flying schools that operate Rotax powered machines as they would benefit from 100 hour oil changes rather than 50 hours.

Apparently the fuel for the UK is tankard in from somewhere in France which I suspect is one of the main reasons for its expense. Although I’m sure totals policy must play a major part as well.

I’ve said it for years the future for the two seat training aircraft is unleaded with 10% ethanol.

Sign in to add your message

Back to Top