Hi Oil & Gas man... yes, I'm ex-refinery too. Multi-product pipelines are the norm nowadays in many countries, even for jet. I think that what the non-oilheads have to realize though is that the levels of FAME that can cause a problem are in the parts per million range. There is no field test yet (maybe next year) for FAME: at the moment specialized Gas Chromatography/mass spectrometry is the only way to be certain. There is no re-test done at the airport for FAME after transit, and none of the standard ASTM tests detect FAME (eg D-1655). The only way to be sure is to downgrade the interface slug and then some. There were some trials at CDG last year and it was astounding to me the amount of Jet that had to be downgraded before it was classed as "clean". I still think that AAIB should state whether they tested for FAME or not.
Its all very well saying "we didnt find any contaminants" but if there's a contaminant you were not expecting, you wouldnt test for it, would you, so how would you know?
If organic fats were present they would have been detected in at least three or four of the tests.
See, thats the bit that really worries me because back last year there was only one test for FAME (GC/MS) so I know - bein' a kemmist an' all - that we are not looking at the same test. If the Chevron letter is correct and that even now there is only a handful of labs that can test for FAME at the moment, which of these "handful" were the 66 fuel samples sent to?