Abstract:

This paper is a review of global issues influencing future transport fuels. Transport energy comes
primarily from petroleum-based liquid fuels and will continue to do so. The demand will grow, mainly in
developing countries and will be heavily skewed towards diesel and jet fuel rather than gasoline. There will be
sufficient oil supply to meet this growing demand over the next few decades. Future fuel properties will also be
affected by engine development trends which need to meet increasingly stringent requirements on efficiency,
emissions, cost, and customer expectations. The optimum fuel for future spark ignition engines is gasoline with
high RON (Research Octane Numbers) and/or low MON (Motor Octane Numbers) and for compression ignition
engines, low octane or low cetane fuel. These changes will require big investments by the refining industry and
will increase the availability of low octane components. Therefore, it is important for auto and oil companies and
other stakeholders to work together to develop highly efficient engine/fuel systems which can use low octane
fuels.

Key words: transport energy, gasoline, diesel, spark ignition (SI) engines, gasoline compression ignition (GCI)
engines, octane numbers