Adulterated liquefied petroleum gas: Many gas stations mix a large amount of dimethyl ether for profit, experts say it is easy to cause accidents
Dimethyl ether is a combustible gas whose price is lower than that of liquefied petroleum gas. Because the two are mutually soluble, illegal traders mix it into civil liquefied gas for huge profits.
In early January, reporters from the Beijing News went to Henan and Anhui to investigate and found that many liquefied gas stations were mixed with dimethyl ether for sale. Among them, a gas station in Yongcheng City, Henan Province was adulterated as high as 45.7%.
A person who runs multiple liquefied gas stations revealed that blending is a "hidden rule" in the industry. In summer, the proportion of gas station adulteration is as high as 70%.
According to Yao Chunde, a professor at Tianjin University, as a chemical product, dimethyl ether is corrosive to a certain degree. After being mixed with liquefied gas, it will corrode the rubber tube on the tank. Over time, it is prone to leakage and many explosion accidents.
The State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine's "Notice on Relevant Issues in Gas Cylinder Filling" clearly stipulates that dimethyl ether shall not be mixed with civil liquefied petroleum gas.
During the investigation, a reporter from the Beijing News found that most gas station operators knew the law and violated the law, and even installed multiple hidden pipelines to avoid inspection.
In Henan, Anhui and other places, some adulterated gas stations have been operating illegally for many years, and regular dimethyl ether manufacturers have also given the “green light” to these civilian gas stations that do not have the qualifications for hazardous chemicals.
Yao Chunde believes that dimethyl ether, as a chemical product that is allowed to be legally produced, is illegally used by illegal traders in some places.
"In addition to the management of liquefied gas stations, relevant departments must strengthen supervision over the circulation of dimethyl ether to prevent dimethyl ether from entering the liquefied gas stations."
"Insensitive to burning" liquefied petroleum gas
Mixed dimethyl ether for sale at multiple gas stations
“A tank of gas used to last for two months, but now it’s burned out in just over a month.” Ms. Xie from Suzhou City, Anhui Province often buys liquefied gas at a grain and oil store near her home.
The price here is cheaper than the regular gas station, but Ms. Xie found that the liquefied gas here is "not resistant to burning".
This grain and oil shop is not a liquefied gas station. It has neither storage tanks nor filling machines.
A reporter from the Beijing News observed for many days and found that the shop owner had stored more than a dozen large liquefied gas tanks in a private house a few hundred meters away from the shop. When someone came to buy gas, he drove to the private house to secretly tank the gas.
Every one or two days, a van comes to deliver air.
The reporter tracked and found that it was the Yalong Liquefied Gas Storage and Distribution Station in Beiyangzhai Township, Suzhou City.
Industry and commerce information shows that the gas station was established in 2004 and has been in operation for 17 years.
The Yalong LPG storage and distribution station is 5 kilometers away from the urban area. There are at least three large storage tanks and a filling room in the station. It covers an area of 1,000 square meters. In addition to nearby residents' door-to-door purchase of gas, several trucks frequently send out gas.
On January 12, a reporter from the Beijing News bought a can of 5 kilograms of liquefied gas at this gas station at a price of 35 yuan, and brought the can of liquefied gas to a restaurant for trial that night.
Compared with pure liquefied gas, the flame of this can of gas is significantly smaller when it burns, and the color is also yellow. The chef of the restaurant felt that the can of liquefied gas purchased by the reporter was "not good".
Later, a reporter from the Beijing News informed the staff of the Yalong Gas Station of the above situation, but the other party insisted that "all the items sold in the station are pure liquefied petroleum gas" and no dimethyl ether was added.
However, during the conversation, the staff member appeared to be very familiar with dimethyl ether.
"It is corrosive and will damage the sealing ring and cause leakage."
In order to resolve doubts, the Beijing News reporter sent the liquefied gas purchased from the Yalong Gas Station to a professional organization for testing.
The results showed that the content of this tank of liquefied gas dimethyl ether was as high as 36.9%.
On January 12, a worker at the Yalong LPG station in Suzhou, Anhui, was filling LPG. The reporter bought a tank of LPG from the station. The test results showed that the content of dimethyl ether in the LPG tank was as high as 36.9%.
Photo by the Beijing News Investigation Team
In mid-to-late January, reporters from the Beijing News visited Henan, Anhui and other places to investigate and found that it was not uncommon for civilian liquefied gas stations to mix dimethyl ether.
Xiayi County, Henan Province, adjacent to Suzhou City, Anhui Province, has a population of 1.2 million. Nearly 30 civilian liquefied gas stations have been opened in the county.
Larger ones can sell 10 tons of liquefied gas per day, and smaller ones can sell one or two tons.
An operator of a local liquefied gas station estimated that the daily consumption of liquefied gas in Xiayi County exceeds 100 tons, mostly for residents.
Liu Xutian, who operates three gas stations in Xiayi, claimed to have been in the liquefied gas industry for six or seven years. When he first started operating gas stations, he did not understand the "hidden rules". Later, under the guidance of his peers, he began to liquefy. Add dimethyl ether to the air.
At present, he is in charge of a transportation team consisting of 8 tank trucks, and distributes gas to more than a dozen gas stations in Xiayi County.
In addition to distributing liquefied gas, he also runs another secret business, which is to deliver dimethyl ether to these liquefied gas stations.
"There is a hidden rule for liquefied gas stations. They are all mixed with dimethyl ether, and very few do not." He said bluntly that this has long been an open secret in the local industry. The gas stations under his own name are all adulterated. The only difference is that Do more and less.
"Can't refuse" huge profits
Earn tens of thousands of yuan a day, the highest adulteration is 70%
As early as March 7, 2008, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine issued the "Notice on Relevant Issues in Gas Cylinder Filling", which clearly stipulated that civil liquefied petroleum gas should not be mixed with dimethyl ether and then filled into liquefied petroleum gas cylinders or Unknown chemical additives were added to welding gas cylinders without authorization.
According to Yao Chunde, a professor at Tianjin University, dimethyl ether is also a combustible gas, but the calorific value of combustion is only two-thirds of that of liquefied gas. Because the two are mutually soluble, it gives unscrupulous traders a chance.
However, dimethyl ether is corrosive to a certain extent, and the risk of gas tank leakage is greatly increased after mixing with liquefied petroleum gas.
As an important chemical raw material, dimethyl ether can be used to synthesize many kinds of chemical products, and can also be used as vehicle fuel, "but the current amount of these aspects is far less than the amount mixed into liquefied petroleum gas." LPG and II The price of methyl ether fluctuates with the market every day, but the price of dimethyl ether is always lower than that of liquefied petroleum gas.
Therefore, mixing dimethyl ether with liquefied petroleum gas and selling it under the name of pure liquefied petroleum gas will bring huge profits to the gas station.
"The more you mix, the more you earn." Liu Xutian told the Beijing News reporter. Taking January 24 as an example, the purchase cost of dimethyl ether was about 3,700 yuan per ton, while the liquefied petroleum gas was about 4900 yuan, 1200 yuan cheaper per ton.
In order to make more money, the proportion of dimethyl ether blended into liquefied gas stations is astonishing.
Liu Xutian took the gas station under his own name as an example and said that the gas station will change the adulteration ratio according to the season.
"It is cold in winter, low pressure, and easy to burn. It is mixed at 5:5, and 6:4 in hot weather. In summer, it can even be mixed to 7:3, which is 70% of dimethyl ether."
During the exchange, Liu Xutian admitted frankly that he knew that mixing dimethyl ether into liquefied gas was illegal, but in the face of such high profits, he "cannot refuse."
After adding 50% dimethyl ether, the cost per ton of liquefied gas dropped from 4,900 yuan to 4,300 yuan.
This means that for every ton of liquefied gas sold, the gas station will make an extra 600 yuan.
The Xiayi County Yemiao Liquefied Gas Station under Liu Xutian's sales volume is very impressive, with a daily sales volume of more than 10 tons. With this gas station alone, he can earn an extra 6,000 yuan a day from adulteration.
In the summer, the proportion of adulteration is high, and the extra profit of gas stations will exceed 10,000 yuan a day.
"Not afraid to check" gas station
Install 3 hidden pipes to respond to inspections
In fact, Liu Xutian’s Xiayi County Yemiao LPG Station was investigated for adulteration four years ago.
On March 29, 2017, the Xiayi County Administration for Industry and Commerce issued a penalty to it. The penalty was: adulteration or adulteration in the product, fake or genuine product, shoddy product, or substandard product as a qualified product.
The penalties were as follows: a fine of 9,000 yuan, and confiscation of illegal income and illegal property of 360 yuan.
Since then, this gas station has no record of being investigated for adulteration.
Avoiding inspection is not difficult for Liu Xutian.
In late January, a reporter from the Beijing News went to Xiayi County in the name of preparing to build a liquefied gas station to ask Liu Xutian about the mystery.
Xiayi County Yemiao LPG Station has five large storage tanks. The two storage tanks on the right contain pure liquefied gas, the two on the left store mixed gas mixed with dimethyl ether, and the middle one is Pure dimethyl ether.
Photo by the Beijing News Investigation Team
He took the reporter to the Yemiao LPG Station to visit.
The gas station is located on the west side of the Yemiao Township Government of Xiayi County. Two tank trucks are parked at the door. At this time, a worker in the gas station is using a filling machine to fill liquefied gas. There are multiple pipes connected to the filling machine to the outdoors. Of five large storage tanks.
"The two storage tanks in the west contain pure liquefied gas, the middle one is pure dimethyl ether, and the two east are mixed gas." Liu Xutian said, the "mystery" for the inspection lies in the pipeline, "I have The three pipelines can be filled with three kinds of gas, switch at will, which kind of gas is released by which valve is opened. When checking, I need to take a sample of liquefied gas, I let the workers install pure liquefied gas, so that no problem can be found. "
Liu Xutian told reporters that many communities in the county are now connected to natural gas, and liquefied gas is mainly sold to restaurants and rural residents.
"Rural residents use more gas than restaurants", but he also revealed that adulterated liquefied gas is mainly sold in rural areas. "It takes more than ten minutes for ordinary people to cook, and restaurants need one or two hours. If the quality is not good enough, it will not be enough. ."
Another reason is that many people are exposed to gas in catering, and many people can distinguish the mixed gas, which is difficult to flicker. "Pure gas has a larger flame and a bluish color. The color of adulterated mixed gas is yellow. The contact time is good for a long time. distinguish."
A reporter from the Beijing News found that many restaurant owners in Xiayi County were fully aware of the adulteration of gas stations, but as for what kind of gas was mixed with and what the dangers were, few people could say.
In contrast, villagers who burn gas all the year round are ignorant of adulteration.
Even if I heard that there was a leak of liquefied gas in villagers’ homes that caused fire or even explosion, they would not think of the problem of adulteration of liquefied gas.
"Major customers" of the dimethyl ether plant
No hazardous chemicals business license can also be purchased
According to relevant regulations, civil liquefied petroleum gas stations without a license for hazardous chemicals cannot sell dimethyl ether.
During the investigation, a reporter from the Beijing News found that some dimethyl ether manufacturers gave “green lights” to unqualified gas stations.
The dimethyl ether in Xiayi County was mainly purchased from a company called Henan Longyu Coal Chemical in Yongcheng City, Henan Province.
This is a state-owned enterprise under the Henan Energy and Chemical Group. In addition to producing dimethyl ether, it also produces acetic acid, methanol and liquid nitrogen. The plant covers an area of 1,000 acres.
Local media have reported that the company's dimethyl ether production line has produced 200,000 tons of dimethyl ether annually since it was put into operation in 2008.
On January 25, workers at the Yongcheng Eurasian LPG Station filled the big tank and the small tank with different gases. The big tank was pure gas, and the small tank was mixed with dimethyl ether.
Photo by the Beijing News Investigation Team
On January 21, the reporter drove to the north gate of the company and saw dozens of tank trucks lined up on the roadside waiting to enter the factory to pull goods. Every time a tank truck enters and exits, the gate guard will register with the license plate number, date and Transport variety.
At 6 o'clock in the afternoon, a tanker with the license plate number Su CF8206 drove into the factory. The registration information showed that the truck entered the factory to transport dimethyl ether.
After more than an hour, the car drove out of the factory, and half an hour later, it drove into the Eurasian LPG terminal in Yongcheng.
After more than two hours, the tank truck left the gas station.
In order to verify whether this liquefied gas station was mixed with dimethyl ether, a reporter from the Beijing News purchased a tank of liquefied gas at the gas station and sent it to a professional organization for testing.
Unsurprisingly, the test results showed that the content of this tank of liquefied gas dimethyl ether was as high as 45.7%.
The content of dimethyl ether detected in the liquefied petroleum gas sold at the Yongcheng Eurasian LPG terminal was 45.7%.
According to industry insiders, if the temperature is high in summer, the proportion of dimethyl ether mixed may be higher.
Photo by the Beijing News Investigation Team
The reporter stayed at the Longyu Coal Chemical Company for several days and discovered that there are many tankers like this that enter the factory to transport dimethyl ether. The license plates are mostly in Anhui, Henan and Jiangsu. Each vehicle can transport about 25 tons of dimethyl ether at a time. .
Subsequently, a reporter from the Beijing News purchased dimethyl ether from Longyu Coal Chemical Company as the operator of the liquefied gas station and contacted the manager surnamed Li of the company's sales department.
On the phone, Manager Li asked the reporter whether he had the relevant qualifications, “This is a dangerous chemical product. We can’t sell it without a dangerous chemical business license.” However, after communication, Manager Li told the reporter, “You can buy it without the qualification, but It’s a little troublesome, and it must go through an intermediary company.
Manager Li said, “The dimethyl ether from the LPG station is usually delivered by our trading company. It is basically sold at a fair price, and a little extra money will be added during peak seasons.” He frankly said that the degree of market relevance between dimethyl ether and LPG Very high, the more the price of liquefied gas rises, the more dimethyl ether is incorporated.
“Most of the dimethyl ether produced by our company flows to the liquefied gas stations in the surrounding areas, where they are mixed with liquefied gas and sold as civil fuel.”
On January 21, a tanker truck transporting dimethyl ether was driving on the road.
After loading the car from the dimethyl ether manufacturer, it drove for about half an hour and then entered the Eurasian Liquefied Gas Terminal in Yongcheng, Henan.
Photo by the Beijing News Investigation Team
Manager Li's statement was also confirmed by Liu Xutian, the owner of the gas station.
The tank truck transportation fleet he manages has long-term cooperation with a trading company to deliver the dimethyl ether produced by Longyu Coal Chemical Company to gas stations that have not purchased qualifications. "Under normal circumstances, it will pull more than 1,000 tons in the next month, mainly for liquefaction. There are gas stations, and there are also some chemical plants, but there are still more gas stations."
Later, a reporter from the Beijing News contacted many domestic dimethyl ether manufacturers and all got the same answer.
Shandong Dezhou Shengdeyuan Chemical Co., Ltd. is a chemical enterprise specializing in the production of dimethyl ether with an annual production capacity of 250,000 tons, which is mainly sold to surrounding areas.
A sales manager of the company told reporters that their dimethyl ether is also mainly sold to gas stations, mixed with liquefied petroleum gas.
Dangerous adulteration
Has caused many explosions
The Beijing News reporter's investigation found that many liquefied gas stations have been operating in violation of regulations for many years, and "adulteration" is an industry problem that needs to be solved urgently.
In 2011, the Hunan Provincial Quality Supervision Department also conducted a special spot check on liquefied petroleum gas. The results were not optimistic. 106 batches were spot checked, 54% of which contained dimethyl ether.
Yao Chunde told the Beijing News reporter that the sealing ring and gas hose of the liquefied gas tank are rubber products. Pure liquefied gas is not corrosive to rubber products, but unlike dimethyl ether, it has a strong corrosive effect on rubber. When dimethyl ether is mixed into the liquefied gas tank, the dimethyl ether will corrode the hose from the inside. This kind of corrosion from the inside to the outside is difficult to be found. The hose is corroded to a certain degree over time, and many explosion accidents This also happened.
Yao Chunde said that ordinary people are not aware of the danger of adulteration.
Over the years, most of the causes of liquefied gas explosion accidents have been characterized as "improper operation". In fact, the leakage of gas tanks caused by mixing dimethyl ether is the inducement of many explosion accidents.
"If you have the conditions, you will find that the culprit in many explosions is the illegal incorporation of dimethyl ether."
The chaos of mixing liquefied petroleum gas with dimethyl ether has been noticed more than ten years ago and has been exposed by many media.
To this end, in 2010, the State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, the State Administration of Safety Supervision, and the National Energy Administration issued an announcement stating that they will jointly carry out special rectification actions for liquefied petroleum gas across the country and strictly investigate the mixing of dimethyl ether with liquefied petroleum gas. Once found to be punished strictly in accordance with the law, the suspected crime shall be transferred to the public security organ.
The penalties inquired showed that the Yongcheng Eurasian Gas Station was fined 9,000 yuan by the industry and commerce department for adulteration in February 2018.
Two years ago, in 2016, this liquefied gas station was also punished for the same reason.
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The reporter found through the China Judgment Documents website that it is not uncommon for some liquefied gas station operators to be sentenced for adulteration.
In July 2020, the Sichuan Meishan Intermediate Court made a judgment on a criminal case and determined that Qixu Company, Shiyuan Company, Yuantong Company, and High Energy Company of Renshou County had mixed large amounts of dimethyl ether with liquefied petroleum gas for external sales, as unqualified The products pretended to be qualified products, and multiple responsible persons of the four companies committed the crime of producing and selling counterfeit and inferior products, and were sentenced to imprisonment ranging from seven to fifteen years.
According to media reports, there were 548 news about gas accidents nationwide in 2020, resulting in 84 deaths and 670 injuries. Among them, there were 215 accidents involving liquefied petroleum gas, accounting for nearly 40%.
In December 2019, a liquefied petroleum gas explosion occurred in a food company in a certain area, causing 4 deaths and 10 injuries.
After investigation, experts determined that the cause of the accident was that the dimethyl ether was illegally mixed with liquefied petroleum gas and corroded the rubber products, causing the liquefied petroleum gas to leak and causing an explosion accident.
Although the regulatory authorities have vigorously rectified, the chronic disease of liquefied gas adulteration is difficult to eradicate.
Liu Junhai, a professor at the School of Law of Renmin University of China and a member of the Market Supervision Expert Committee of the State Administration for Market Supervision, believes that the adulteration of operators in liquefied gas is a fraud, and it also poses a great threat to the personal safety of consumers, and the circumstances may be serious. It constitutes the crime of producing and selling fake and inferior products.
"The adulteration of liquefied gas is relatively secretive, and it is difficult for consumers to protect their rights. They should be severely punished in accordance with the law." He suggested that the regulatory authorities should increase penalties to make the cost of violations higher than the benefits of violations and strengthen daily inspections of liquefied gas stations. Increase the frequency of spot checks.
Yao Chunde analyzed that the dimethyl ether industry is currently deformed and overly dependent on liquefied petroleum gas.
In the year when the four departments joined forces to rectify the liquefied gas market, my country’s dimethyl ether production reached its peak, with an annual output of more than 5 million tons around 2010. Later, the liquefied gas market was strictly controlled and the dimethyl ether production declined. It has remained at 200 in the past few years. More than 10,000 tons.
"In some areas, the investigation and punishment are more intense, and there are fewer chaotic phenomena. Adulteration is still more common in areas with loose supervision." Yao Chunde believes that dimethyl ether, as a chemical product, is allowed to be legally produced, but the problem is that dimethyl ether is being illegally traded. Illegal use.
"Currently, the supervision of dimethyl ether in the circulation link needs to be strengthened, so that dimethyl ether cannot enter the liquefaction station. As long as it is determined to control it, it will definitely be eliminated."
Beijing News Investigation Team