Europe Gasoline / Fuel

Gasoline is a major transportation fuel for automobiles and is rivaled in its use in internal combustion engines (ICE) only by diesel fuel, which predominates in automotive vehicles in the commercial sector. Gasoline is also used as an aviation fuel for propeller aircraft. Recreational vehicles and some maritime vessels also use gasoline. The United States is the leading national market for gasoline due to high car ownership and lower efficiency standards over developing countries and European consumers. With its various constituents and additives, gasoline fuel is more volatile than kerosene, jet fuel (naphtha), diesel or heating oil. Other fuels such as diesel, kerosene and jet fuel or differentiated by the lengths of the carbon chains, with gasoline representing a blend of hydrocarbon molecules with a range of chain lengths.

Emerging transportation and heating fuels include biodiesel (methyl esters produced from natural oils and methanol), renewable diesel (produced from vegetable oils or animal fats in a refinery), butanol, aviation biofuel, and biogasoline (also produced through refinery processing methods). Ethanol is a common gasoline fuel additive in the United States, and is widely used as the primary transportation fuel (with 50% to 100% blends) in many regions of Brazil where ethanol production is a leading national industry. Biodiesel and renewable diesel can also be added or blended with diesel at 2% to 20%. Biodiesel has additional been considered as a heating oil. These transportation fuels are expected to support or penetrate into gasoline retail markets in China and other growing regions of demand.