Context: Recently, the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas has launched world-class premium-grade Petrol (with Octane number 100) in the country.
Key Points

• Branded as XP100, the premium grade petrol was launched across ten cities by Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
• The technology for India’s first octane petrol has been indigenously created by Indian Oil Research and Development.
• The availability of XP100 puts India in an elite group of countries, having access to such high-quality oil. The petrol will provide high quality and power to the engine.
• Worldwide, 100 Octane petrol has a niche market for luxury vehicles that demand high performance and is available only in six countries like Germany, USA, etc.
• Indian Oil plans to roll-out XP100 premium grade petrol in 15 identified cities across the country in two phases.

Octane numbering of Petrol

• Octane number, also called Antiknock Rating, a measure of the ability of a fuel to resist knocking when ignited in a mixture with air in the cylinder of an internal-combustion engine.
• Engine knock is a tapping, pinging sound that gets louder and more obnoxious as we accelerate.
• The octane number is determined by comparing, under standard conditions, the knock intensity of the fuel with that of blends of two reference fuels: iso-octane, which resists knocking, and heptane, which knocks readily.
• The octane number is the percentage by volume of iso-octane in the iso-octane–heptane mixture that matches the fuel being tested in a standard test engine.