The UK is so strange in so many ways. AirBP (a UK aviation fuel company I believe) bought Statoil Aviation (A Norwegian aviation fuel distributor) in December/January. Now they are installing UL91 pumps at Norwegian Airports 
… and poor me who always understood UL91 was a product/idea/initiative from Total ~= French government?
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
and poor me who always understood UL91 was a product/idea/initiative from Total ~= French government?
? The Swedes have been using UL91 for decades, or Avgas 91/96 UL as they call it now. UL91 is a product from Warter in Poland, which is what AirBP (former Statoil) is distributing.
So, what is different between Norway and the UK?
Also does anyone know whether 91UL is popular in France?
It seems to me that 91UL can work in places where
Sweden’s 96UL is different – almost anything can use that stuff.
My club buys 91/96UL from Hjelmco at about SEK 2/litre (€0.21) less than what we pay BP for 100LL.
Nope. You are confusing Rich and Lean Mixture Octance Number. The latter (which is 100 for Avgas 100LL) is 91 for both UL91 and Hjelmco 91/96UL. They are very similar fuels.
They are very similar indeed, the same stuff essentially. Hjelmco is 100LL specs with the lead removed. UL91 is a similar aviation spec (not identical though), but they are both 96/91 (RON/MON) octane aviation fuel without lead.
Peter wrote:
So, what is different between Norway and the UK?
In the UK you believe that UL91 is a French conspiracy. In Norway we know for a fact that UL91 is a Swedish/Polish conspiracy distributed by Brits
More seriously, anyone can get aviation fuel from wherever they like, in any grade they like and distribution is cheap. In Norway, the big companies seems to be ending their distribution of Avgas at more and more airports, except the larger ones, because it is just a hassle to hem. To get fuel is therefore left open to private initiative from clubs typically. 91UL is cheaper to produce than 100LL. When I can get UL91, 100LL, MOGAS or Jet in the middle of the mountains in Norway and pay less for all of it than any aviation grade fuel in densely populated UK, then production, distribution and storage costs has very little to do with the end price. There are other things going on, more UK specific things.
I don’t think anybody thinks there is a conspiracy, but lots of people are wondering what TOTAL’s “grand plan” really was.
Was there a plan or were they just incompetent? How could they have not realised the way airport economics works? They probably did expect to have to subsidise the process by giving away free bowsers, but they would have not achieved the volumes unless they pretty well killed off 100LL which – it was obvious from what Lyco/Conti were willing / not willing to certify for 91UL – was clearly not going to be achieved when they started several years ago.
Maybe it works better in countries where there is less “touring” so fewer higher power engines. But that still leaves each airport with a difficult decision: stop 100LL and lose a lot of visiting business, or greatly increase the price of 100LL and, ahem, lose a lot of visiting business.
Can any French based pilot indicate how much 91UL is distributed in France? Is it commonly used?
There are other things going on, more UK specific things.
What do you think they are? UK airfields make about 30p/litre margin on 100LL.
Touring? Europe? Visiting business?
In Germany we (still) often have the choice and I know some of the Rotax community simply avoiding UL91-airfields. I only refuel with UL91, if I don’t have any another choice to avoid lead or if avoidance is an absolute hassle.
