The debate surrounding the use of fuel additive MMT and its effect on vehicles continues with Ethyl Petroleum Additives accusing Naamsa of spreading misinformation.
The debate surrounding the use of fuel additive MMT and its effect on vehicles continues with Ethyl Petroleum Additives accusing Naamsa of spreading misinformation.
John Aitken, the business director of Ethyl Petroleum Additives, warned Naamsa last week to stop spreading misinformation that deliberately misled the government and caused substantial damage to MMT, Ethyl Petroleum Additives and the company’s oil industry customers.
As reported on CARtoday.com, Aitken last week stated that the claims made by Naamsa regarding the damage that MMT caused to catalytic converters “are unsubstantiated and not true. The auto industry around the world has failed for many years to produce any data which can stand up to rigorous scientific evaluation, to support allegations that MMT is detrimental to vehicles.”
“Naamsa knows that the claims in their memo are untrue … because their claims contradict the motor manufacturers’ own research into our product, where tests run over 1.6 million kilometres with hi-tech vehicles have shown that MMT causes no damage to vehicles whatsoever.
”Naamsa members were attempting to cover up component failure in vehicles “by blaming us”, Aitken added.
In a statement, Naamsa said that its document “represents an industry internal/confidential memorandum” and had been used as the basis for engaging various oil companies on the subject of the motor industry’s obligations regarding the quality of unleaded fuel in certain parts of South Africa.
Meanwhile, Andy Raath, the managing director of Associated Octel South Africa, a fuel additives company that supplies tetra ethyl lead to the petroleum industry, said there were compelling reasons to extend the January 2006 deadline for the complete removal of lead from South African petrol.
