N1 Stops Importing Diesel B7 from Norway

N1, a company that owns numerous gas stations in Iceland, has stopped importing diesel B7 — a fuel with added biocomponents of up to seven percent — from Norway, Morgunblaðið reports.

Numerous owners of diesel vehicles have run into trouble, due to impurities that have blocked oil filters and in some cases damaged fuel injectors. This has required costly repairs. The trouble was particularly severe for about a month in the fall and was not limited to any specific oil brand or gas stations, since all the oil companies in Iceland import the same kind of oil from the Equinor petroleum refining company in Norway. One company in the travel industry experienced repeated malfunctions of its vehicles, resulting in repair costs of ISK 6-7 million.

Oil companies are required to mix diesel with vegetable oil or other renewable sources of energy to decrease fossil fuel emissions.

Although samples are analyzed from all oil shipments that come to the country, the substance that blocks the filters has not been detected in them, nor has it been detected in the companies’ oil tanks. Fjölver, a laboratory in charge of quality control for the oil companies, has, however, confirmed the presence of sterol glucosides in impurities found in the oil filters. That is a substance, found, among other places, in vegetable oil and is known in Europe to cause problems in diesel vehicles by clogging up oil filters.

N1 is considering other ways to mix the diesel that will fulfill the requirement of reducing CO2 emissions.