AirfoilMod
When CM says 'exceeded' he means, in the case of freezing point, that it wasn't just ' - 47 deg C' (the usual spec of jet A-1) because it was in fact RP-3/Jet Fuel Number 3 which is what is sold as equivalent to Jet A-1 in the Chinese market. There is indeed a common phrase "meets or exceeds" spec in our business so you are wrong about that although from a fit for purpose / contractual point of view, yes, it either meets spec or it doesnt. It did. By miles.
What he has also said or implied is that the detailed research is discovering some heretofore unknown relationships between fuel composition and extended exposure to extremely low temperatures.
Given the fact that Chinese Jet is probably wide cut, that is of no surprise to me, and although I am nowhere near the investigation it also wouldnt surprise me if there were to be discovered that there were a physico-chemical interaction between wax from wide-cut product (similar to diesel in winter) and microscopic ice crystals under these conditions. Its a personal guess, and I would bet my house on it, but it will be something like that.
I cant see that he is at all suggesting the Trent has an anomalous "fuel problem", although if you ran RR Trent and GE 90 together under identical conditions it would be unlikely that they would both respond identically. One would inevitably be slightly more sensitive than the other to low temperatures and variations in certain fuel components and on the basis of one incident you couldnt say which.
What he didnt say and what it WILL do is to introduce an additional and/or an altered test for freeze point and maybe introduce additional tests or change the upper limit on aromatics or density, and possibly some other parameters. Now that I would bet my house on.
Pinkman