Let me give you an example in another area. With profits growing exponentially in the market, there has been some scientific testing with a view to developing products such as liquid hydrogen.
Several years ago in California, Shell set up a number of service stations, or added the necessary infrastructure to existing service stations, to be able to supply vehicles that run on hydrogen. Personally, I think that was a good public relations exercise, to let people know that attempts had been made to market hydrogen. The network is limited to just a few service stations. People who want to give up gasoline in favour of hydrogen unfortunately have no choice but to live in the area where those service stations happen to be. It is as though the company wanted to show its good will through this public relations exercise, but really had no intention of going any further with it.
Also, when gasolines and biofuels come onto the market, we may want to avoid the same mistake in terms of large numbers of refining formulas. California has its own formula for CARB gasoline, and the American Midwest and Illinois have their formula for producing ethanol. Formulas for determining the right sulphur content in gasoline were developed in 1999. When the sulphur content regulation came into place in 2005, we were not on the same schedule as the Americans. There was a six-month lag. So, with new, more environmental fuels coming onto the market, we will have to be careful to try and avoid ending up with too many formulas. I think we will need to look more to standard, consistent products.
