The Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia) in pursuit of its goals to facilitate, promote and strengthen capacity building efforts on Air Quality Management implemented a training program on fuel quality strategy. Australian Department of Environment and Heritage provided financial support for the program in the context of Australia’s participation in the "Global Partnership for Cleaner Fuels" announced at the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg, South Africa in August 2002. The International Fuel Quality Center (IFQC), in addition to its role as a consultant to the program also provided in kind assistance.

CAI-Asia together with IFQC developed and delivered a training program for five Asian countries, which currently do not have a medium term fuel quality strategy in place.

IFQC took the lead in the development of the fuel quality strategies manual with inputs from CAI-Asia. The Manual has 5 modules:

• Module 1 - The Importance of Fuel Quality Strategies and Main Building Blocks
• Module 2 - Refining and Automobile Technical Issues and Costs to Consider When Designing Fuel Quality Strategies
• Module 3 - Pricing and Market Regulation Issues which Influence the Success of Fuel Quality Changes
• Module 4 - Monitoring and Enforcement of Fuel Quality Policies
• Module 5 - How Do You Finalize Fuel Quality Strategy and Gather Support for Its Implementation?
• Glossary

The actual training was conducted by IFQC and CAI-Asia, with substantive inputs from ADEH and other guest lecturers over a 5-day period in October 2003 in Sydney.

The workshop and training manual focused on conventional gasoline and diesel fuel quality. Alternative fuels such as compressed natural gas (CNG), bio-diesel and other fuels, commonly considered, as alternative fuels were not addressed.

Senior decision makers from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam took part in the training program which aims to assist these countries in the development of medium-term fuel quality strategies that will ultimately help reduce vehicle emissions. All five countries have developed their own "Terms of Reference" to effectively implement a medium term fuel quality strategy. Follow-up activities are currently underway in each of these countries to further develop their TORs and to plan for the possible implementation of their medium-term fuel quality strategy.

Related Article: Fuel Quality Best Practice: Application to Vietnam's Fuel Quality Strategy (June 2005)