Petroleum Regulations

ASTM committees must be balanced in that the number of voting producers must not be greater than the number of voting nonproducers. Eor petroleum products, nonproducers are regulators, consumers, and equipment manufacturers. Committee chairs must be nonproducers. Although standards must be approved by a majority, aH negative votes must be carefully considered and a response made. In practice, because aH issues are fully discussed and the discussions are based on hard data, very few negative votes are cast when standards are submitted for final approval. 

Secondary sources of data are useful when they exist. Databases (qv) of pubUshed information have been assembled, and market researchers can tap them provided their company buys the service. These databases can save the market analyst many hours of work. The services also provide much of the general sociopolitical—economic background needed, such as petroleum (qv) prices, government regulations, foreign competition, etc. 

Outlook. Total 1991 U.S. ink consumption was estimated at about 86 x 10 kg valued at over 3.0 biUion. The demand is estimated to grow at an average of about 3—4% per year in volume (26). The principal changes expected in the 1990s will continue to be in response to environmental and safety concerns and government regulations. The bulk of printing inks use raw materials based on fossil fuels, such as coal (qv) and petroleum (qv). 

A primary source of environmental pollution from printing ink comes from the metal-based pigments used, as well as various resins, waxes, and drying agents that are also part of the inks. These materials are added to inks regardless of the source of the oil. As a result, petroleum inks are just as suitable for landfill disposal under U.S. EPA regulations as are vegetable oil inks. 

The reduction ia tetraethyl lead for gasoline production is expected to iacrease the demand for petroleum alkylate both ia the U.S. and abroad. Alkylate producers have a choice of either a hydrofluoric acid or sulfuric acid process. Both processes are widely used. However, concerns over the safety or potential regulation of hydrofluoric acid seem likely to convince more refiners to use the sulfuric acid process for future alkylate capacity. 

Petroleum pipe hues before 1969 were built to ASA (now ANSI) Standard B31.4 for liquids and Standard B31.8 for gas. These standards were seldom mandatoiy because few states adopted them. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), which now has responsi-bihty for pipe-line regulation, issued Title 49, Part 192—Transportation of Natural Gas and Other Gas by Pipeline Minimum Safety Standards, and Part 195—Transportation of Liquids by Pipehne. These contain considerable material from B31.4 and B31.8. They allow generally higher stresses than the ASME Pressure Vessel Code would allow for steels of comparable strength. The enforcement of their regulations is presently left to the states and is therefore somewhat uncertain. 

The practice of smudging is still carried out in many areas to protect orchards from frost. Petroleum products are burned in pots, producing both heat and smoke. Since the heat is the desirable product, smokeless heaters with return ducts to reburn the smoke are required by most air pollution control agencies. Some control agencies have passed regulations limiting the smoke to 0.5 or 1.0 gm per minute per burner. 

LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) Petroleum gas stored or proeessed as a liquid in equilibrium with vapour by refrigeration or pressurization. The two LPGs in general use are eommereial propane and eommereial butane supplied to produet speeifieations, e.g. BS 4250. (These, or mixtures thereof, eomprise LPG for the purpose of the Highly Flammable Liquids and Liquefied Petroleum Gas Regulations 1972.)... 

C, except a liquid which when tested at 55°C in the manner described in Schedule 2 to the Highly Flammable Liquids and Liquefied Petroleum Gases Regulations 1972 does not support combustion. 

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