Speaking to Rudaw’s Ranj Sangawi, Sangar Salih, head of the chemistry department at Erbil’s Salahaddin University, said that the vast majority of the diesel that is sold in the Kurdistan Region’s markets have been mixed with naphta and motor oil, and their Sulphur content greatly exceeds the standard levels.
“According to a research we conducted on the diesel used in the Kurdistan Region’s generators, around 95 percent of the diesel has been diluted, and some has been mixed with naphtha and burned motor oil,” said Salih.
The researcher stated that the diluted fuel poses a threat to the user’s wellbeing and the environment, stressing that most of the diesel currently used in the Region “cannot even be called diesel.”
International standards have typically advised to use diesel with Sulphur levels not exceeding 50 parts per million (ppm), however, Salih said that, according to a 2020 study, the diesel sold in the Kurdistan Region has a Sulphur level of 25,000 to 29,000 ppm.
Iraqi standards recommend that Sulphur levels are below 8,000 ppm, meaning that the diesel used in the Kurdistan Region does not pass the Iraqi standards either.
“Apart from international firms and generator owners that worry about their own generators, everyone else in the Kurdistan Region uses the bad quality diesel,” Salih added.
Engine types and lack of catalytic converters are two other factors contributing to the air pollution in the Kurdistan Region, according to Salih Najib, a professor at the natural resources department at the University of Sulaimani.
“The thick smoke that comes from some car exhausts causes more than 70 types of diseases, including cancer,” said Najib.
He also blamed the low quality fuel and lack of refineries for the Region’s air pollution.
“In the Kurdistan Region, there is no exemplary refinery that can separate all the components of petrol and diesel in a way that produces the least amount of threat to public health and the environment,” Najib told Rudaw.
Citing data from the Switzerland-based IQAir, Najib said that the air quality in Erbil has been consistently reported to be unhealthy in recent months. IQAir estimates Erbil’s air quality index (AQI) at 152, which implies that the general public is prone to experiencing health problems due to the air.
Erbil’s PM2.5 concentration is approximately 11 times higher than the World Health Organization’s (WHO) annual air guideline value, according to the Swiss company.
The rate of patients diagnosed with cancer in Sulaimani has been consistently increasing over the past five years. Almost 6,300 people were diagnosed with cancer in 2020. The number jumped to over 7,900 in 2021 and reached 9,000 in 2022. Nearly 10,000 people were diagnosed with cancer in Sulaimani in 2023.
“The rising rate [of cancer patients] indicates that we are interacting with dangerous and toxic gases on a daily basis,” said Najib.
Nasrat Zangana, a gas salesman and generator owner in Erbil, claimed that more than half of the diesel used in the Kurdish capital’s generators meet the standards, and that the smoke that comes from them is due to engine problems, not the diesel.
“Around 2,000 generators operate in Erbil, but there are over 200,000 pickup trucks that run on diesel. Therefore, only a very small part of the air pollution is due to the generators,” said Zangana.
“The smoke from some of the neighborhood generators has nothing to do with the diesel, and the problem is the generators’ engines… The diesel used in Erbil meets the standards as around 65 percent of the generators use the fuel produced at Kar refiner,” he added.
Omar Mohammed, head of Sulaimani’s public power generators council, called on the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to monitor the quality of fuel to prevent further issues.
“The government must bear the responsibility of providing good gas for the generators, because there are days when the neighborhood generators are providing electricity for 15 hours, the government must provide us with a reliable source of gas,” said Mohammed.
An official of the KRG’s Board of Environmental Protection and Improvement said that they can issue decrees to shut down factories and refineries that are accused of harming the environment, but currently lack any executive authorities to implement such orders.
“The environmental board does not have executive authority and we need a police force to implement the decrees, but they have not provided us with police as of yet,” said Razaq Khaliani, adding that they have called for merging the forest police with the environmental protection, and making the force a part of the board.
