European Commission selects Dow fuel marker as new Euromarker
The European Commission has selected Dow ACCUTRACE™ Plus Fuel Marker as the new common fiscal marker for tax rebated fuels in the European Union (EU). The decision to adopt a new fiscal marker, also known as Euromarker, aims to provide member states a safer, more resilient marker to support governments’ fuel fraud prevention programs.
“The European Commission’s decision to adopt ACCUTRACE™ Plus Fuel Marker as the new Euromarker is a testimony to the value of our technology,” said Katja Wodjereck, EMEAI commercial director, Dow Industrial Solutions, and president and general manager for Germany, Austria and Switzerland (D/A/CH). “Fuel fraud is a major global challenge, estimated to cause tax losses of EUR7 to 10 billion each year in the EU1. Dow has been helping to shape fuel marking programs across the globe with our award-winning technology. Our technology is well suited to support the EU government’s fuel fraud and theft prevention programs.”
The adoption of ACCUTRACE™ Plus Fuel Marker as the new Euromarker follows extensive independent technical and safety assessments of the latest fuel marking technologies conducted by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER). Assessment results demonstrated that ACCUTRACE™ Plus Fuel Marker provides unique resilience to the most common illegal removal techniques, outperforming alternative technologies including the incumbent Euromarker2.
“Dow has a proven track record in providing effective launder-resistance fuel marker technologies which have already been used for years by governments, including the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland,” said Daniel Saiz, technical service and development, Dow Industrial Solutions. “Dow’s new patented ACCUTRACE™ Plus Fuel Marker builds upon the proven success of these technologies, with added unique resistance to known laundering techniques including distillation removal methods.”
Some of the benefits of ACCUTRACE™ Plus Fuel Marker that led to its selection as the new marker are:
• Resilience – ACCUTRACE™ Plus Fuel Marker is highly resistant to common chemical and physical laundering techniques. The marker maintains a unique fingerprint in the fuel, which alerts authorities to its intended use and enhances supply chain governance and product identification3.
• No harmful additives – ACCUTRACE™ Plus Fuel Marker contains only elements commonly found in petroleum and petroleum derivatives (carbon, hydrogen and oxygen), without any known ozone-depleting additives. It does not present the dioxin-emitting or corrosive properties of halocarbons, nor the health risks associated with some metals.
• Easy to handle – Though invisible to the naked eye and completely undetectable to those who don’t know what to look for in a lab, the ACCUTRACE™ Plus Fuel Marker can be detected in a traditional laboratory or in the field using portable equipment. The product is non-flammable and blended in a high flash solvent system, making it easy to handle and to apply by the end user due to its excellent soluble, pumpable and pourable qualities even at low temperatures.
The European Commission has established a 24-month transition period where both markers – ACCUTRACE™ Plus Fuel Marker and the current Euromarker – will co-exist in the market in order to allow the fuel industry to smoothly adopt the new Euromarker.
1 Ecorys: Study on the estimated economic implications of fuel laundering & wider fuel fraud in the EU (2019)
2 European Commission, JRC report: Evaluation of the performance of the short-listed candidate markers regarding the technical requirements (2017)
3 European Commission, JRC report: Evaluation of the performance of the short-listed candidate markers regarding the technical requirements (2017)
