GN flies gasoline to Resolute to fill gap until summer

The Government of Nunavut has flown 36,000 litres of gasoline to Resolute Bay to tide the community over until warmer summer temperatures make the community’s current stock of gasoline more usable.

Lorne Kusugak, the minister of Community Government and Services, conveyed this information April 28 in a letter sent to Ron Elliot, the MLA for High Arctic.

Since this past December, vehicle owners in Resolute have complained about the quality of their gasoline.

Kusugak said that’s because “vapour pressure,” or “RVP,” a measure of gasoline’s volatility, appears to be low in the batch shipped to Resolute.

“The main symptom as a result of low RVP is difficulty starting in extreme temperatures,” he said in his letter.

Nunavut normally supplies winter grade gasoline to communities, but because of the RVP problem, the Resolute supply has been reclassifed as “summer grade.”

And that summer grade supply should perform properly in the warmer summer months, Kusugak said.

“It should be noted, however, that low Vapour Pressure does not in anyway depreciate the general quality of the gasoline. In addition, there will be no damage cause to your constituents’ vehicles,” Kusugak told Elliot.

In the meantime, the GN will store the extra 36,000 litres of winter grade gasoline in a smaller tank, and do more investigations on the cause of the problem in Resolute, Kusugak said.