David Harvey, CITGO Petroleum Corp. manager, fuels quality technology and technical services, received a special Award of Appreciation from the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Int. at an ASTM subcommittee meeting in Miami Beach, Fla. The award honored Harvey for his efforts in championing the addition of a specification

standard that limits the amount of sulfates in denatured ethanol and for his work in helping to develop three testing methods to measure these sulfates.

ASTM International is a private organization that develops and publishes voluntary technical standards for a wide range of materials, products, systems and services for a diverse range of industries. Many of its members come from the oil and gas industry.

Harvey was instrumental in getting the standard adopted by ASTM International during lengthy negotiations between major oil companies, including CITGO, automobile manufacturers and ethanol producers to help resolve problems with gasoline pump filters and other equipment as well as automobile fuel injectors that affected many gasoline marketers and consumers. These problems, which were caused by high levels of sulfates in ethanol, first surfaced in 2004 in parts of the United States. The specification standard (now four parts per million) has resolved those problems.