EN 590 Diesel (10 ppm ULSD) Specification, Item by Item, for Buyers

01 · Standard

EN 590 is a dated CEN delivery standard, and the edition is part of the specification

EN 590 'Automotive fuels - Diesel - Requirements and test methods' is a European Standard prepared by CEN technical committee CEN/TC 19, whose secretariat is held by the Dutch standards body NEN. It specifies requirements and test methods for marketed and delivered automotive diesel, for engines designed to run on diesel containing up to 7,0 % v/v FAME. CEN members, including the United Kingdom and Türkiye, must adopt it unchanged as a national standard, which is why you will see BS EN 590, DIN EN 590, I.S. EN 590 and similar labels on documents. They are the same technical text.

The current edition is EN 590:2025, dated July 2025, approved by CEN on 6 July 2025, with national adoption due by January 2026. It supersedes EN 590:2022 (March 2022), which itself replaced EN 590:2013+A1:2017. The 2025 edition added a particle-count limit, the IP 630 test method for it, a constant-pressure viscometer method (EN ISO 18335), and lowered the minimum density of summer grades A, B and C from 820,0 to 815,0 kg/m³ while moving density back into the general table. The 2022 edition had earlier lowered the density floor for grades D, E and F, added new alternative test methods and clarified the lubricity requirement and the sulphur dispute rule.

For a buyer outside Europe, EN 590 has no legal force on its own: it becomes binding through your contract. That is why the edition matters. A specification sheet that says only 'EN 590' or 'EN590 10ppm' leaves open which density range, which test methods and which cold-flow grade the seller is promising. In contracts we review, we ask for the edition year and the grade or class to be written next to the product name.

Sources [1][2]

02 · Line by line

Each line of an EN 590 certificate is a limit plus a named test method; read them as a pair

EN 590 lists general requirements that apply whatever the season, and climate-dependent requirements that vary by grade. The table below sets out the general requirements with the test methods the standard references. A result without its method is only half a result: the method sets the measuring range, the precision and how a dispute is settled.

A few items deserve attention. Cetane number is measured in an engine or an approved combustion-chamber instrument, while cetane index is calculated from density and distillation; a refinery that uses cetane improver additive can show a cetane number well above the index, and EN 590 requires both. Oxidation stability has two forms: 25 g/m³ by EN ISO 12205 for all fuel, plus an induction-period test (EN 15751, or EN 16091 since 2022) when FAME exceeds 2,0 % v/v. Lubricity is a protection limit for fuel-injection pumps, because hydrotreating that removes sulphur also removes natural lubricating compounds.

Several values below come from public tables that reproduce EN 590 editions before 2025 (DieselNet, distributor sheets). The 2025 edition changed density and added the particle count; for other lines we found no indication of change in the published list of 2025 changes, but anyone writing a contract should check them against the purchased text.

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03 · Law vs standard

Six EN 590 limits are written into EU law, and they are 'true values' with a reproducibility margin

Annex II of the EU Fuel Quality Directive 98/70/EC, in the form substituted by Directive 2014/77/EU, sets the environmental specification for diesel sold in the EU: cetane number at least 51,0, density at 15 °C no more than 845,0 kg/m³, 95 % v/v recovered by 360,0 °C, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons no more than 8,0 % m/m, sulphur no more than 10,0 mg/kg and FAME no more than 7,0 % v/v (with the FAME meeting EN 14214). The test methods are those of EN 590.

The Directive states that these are true values, set using EN ISO 4259, and that individual results are interpreted under that standard. In plain terms, a single laboratory result slightly over a limit is not automatically a failure; the precision of the method is taken into account. EN 590 itself has a 'precision and dispute' clause built on EN ISO 4259-2, and the 2022 edition clarified how this applies to sulphur.

For buyers in Korea, the Middle East and Africa, the practical point is that EN 590 values are the European legal and technical baseline, not your national rule. Your import standard may be stricter or looser on individual lines, and it is your national standard that the customs laboratory or quality authority will apply.

Sources [2][3]

04 · Cold flow

'EN 590' does not fix cold-flow performance; the grade letter or arctic class does

EN 590 defines six temperate grades, A to F, distinguished by the maximum cold filter plugging point (CFPP, EN 116 or EN 16329), and five arctic or severe-winter classes, 0 to 4, which also set a cloud point and relax density, viscosity and cetane. Each country chooses which grade applies in which season. A UK distributor, for instance, publishes a summer CFPP of -5 °C and winter -15 °C for road diesel; a Nordic supplier may sell class 1 to class 4 in winter.

For a tropical or Gulf destination, a summer grade is usually adequate, but a winter cargo bought from a northern European refinery is not a problem either, because a lower CFPP still meets a warmer grade. The risk runs the other way: a cargo certified as summer grade and sold into a cold inland market. Write the grade into the contract, ask for CFPP on the certificate, and for northern routes ask for cloud point too.

Sources [1][4][5][9]

05 · Other specs

A cargo can meet EN 590 and still fail the destination standard

Diesel offers into our markets carry several labels: EN 590, ASTM D975 'ULSD', Korean automotive diesel, GOST 'Euro 5' (class K5). They overlap on sulphur but not on much else. ASTM D975 has seven grades; its ultra-low-sulphur grades (S15) allow 15 ppm sulphur, a lower cetane floor and a more permissive lubricity limit than EN 590. GOST 32511-2013 is an interstate standard modified from EN 590:2009 and keeps the same grade letters; its ecological class K5 corresponds to 10 mg/kg sulphur.

Korea is the case importers most often underestimate. The automotive diesel standard published by K-Petro under the Petroleum and Alternative Fuel Business Act requires density 815-835 kg/m³ (EN 590 allows up to 845), cetane 52 (EN 590: 51), HFRR 400 µm (EN 590: 460), PAH no more than 5 wt% (EN 590: 8,0 % m/m), aromatics no more than 30 wt% and a biodiesel content of 2-5 vol%. Lubricity, PAH and aromatics are checked at the production or import stage. An EN 590 cargo at 840 kg/m³ is fully on-specification in Europe and off-specification for the Korean road market without blending.

The same logic applies in the Middle East and Africa: national standards and regional harmonised specifications may set different density, cetane or lubricity limits. Before you buy 'EN 590', put your own national standard side by side with it and identify the lines where the destination is stricter. Those lines should be guaranteed in the contract, not assumed.

Sources [3][6][7][8][9]

06 · Documents

A typical specification is a promise about a product; a certificate of quality is evidence about one batch

Offers usually arrive with a 'typical specification' or 'product specification' sheet. That document states the limits the product is designed to meet and sometimes typical values. It is not a test result. A certificate of quality (CoQ) or certificate of analysis is issued by a named laboratory for a named sample: a shore tank, a ship's composite or a pipeline sample, with a date and a sample identification.

When you receive a CoQ, read it the way an inspector would. Identify who issued it and whether that laboratory is accredited for the methods shown; which tank or vessel and which sample it covers; the sampling and test dates; the edition and grade it is reported against; and whether every EN 590 property is listed with a result, a unit and a method. Results that are reported only as 'pass' or 'conforms', or that repeat the limit value instead of a measured number, should be queried.

In deals we have worked on, the most useful single question is: 'Which tank or vessel does this certificate belong to, and can the inspector confirm it directly to us?' A genuine load-port certificate is tied to a physical quantity at a known place and time.

Sources [1][2]

07 · Sampling

Quality is only as good as the sample: agree who samples, where, under which standard

EN 590 names its sampling standards: EN ISO 3170 for manual sampling and EN ISO 3171 for automatic pipeline sampling. ISO 3170 was revised in June 2025 as 'Hydrocarbon liquids - Manual sampling' and covers tanks, ships and barges, road and rail vehicles, drums and pipelines. A contract that refers to these standards gives the inspector a clear method and gives you a basis to challenge a sample taken differently.

Most international diesel contracts decide quality at the load port, on samples drawn by a mutually agreed independent inspector, with the inspector's certificate final and binding except for manifest error. That is common market practice, not a rule of EN 590. Buyers who need protection against contamination in transit add a discharge-port test with a defined tolerance and a claim period. Either way, the contract should state which samples are retained, by whom, for how long, and which laboratory performs any referee test.

1. Name the inspection company (or a short list) and who appoints and pays it.
2. State the place of quality determination: shore tank, vessel composite after loading, or discharge.
3. Refer to EN ISO 3170/ISO 3170 and EN ISO 3171 for sampling, and to the EN 590 edition and grade for testing.
4. Require a full-specification analysis on every property in EN 590, with methods and results, not 'pass'.
5. Fix retained samples: number of sealed samples, who holds them and for how long.
6. Write the dispute route: referee laboratory, time limit, and interpretation under EN ISO 4259-2 as EN 590 provides.
7. Ask for documents to come directly from the inspector or be verifiable with the inspector.

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08 · Red flags

Most problem offers fail on paperwork that a careful reader can catch in ten minutes

The patterns below are ones we see often in offers labelled 'EN590 10ppm'. None of them proves bad faith; each is a reason to ask for a document or a correction before going further. Many broker sheets are copied from old tables and repeated without anyone checking them.

Sulphur method is the clearest technical test. EN 590 references EN ISO 20846, EN ISO 20884 and EN ISO 13032 for sulphur. ISO 8754, an energy-dispersive XRF method still seen on some offer sheets, applies only from 0,03 % (300 mg/kg) upward, so it cannot demonstrate 10 mg/kg. ISO 20846 itself was revised in 2026; citing the 2019 edition is not wrong for older certificates, but a new certificate should match the methods current at the laboratory.

Sources [1][2][11][12]

09 · Checklist

Before you sign, the product description should be specific enough for an inspector to fail the cargo

A good diesel specification clause lets an independent inspector say 'on-spec' or 'off-spec' without asking the parties what they meant. Use the list below to test any 'EN 590' offer or draft contract before signing. It is a practical tool, not legal advice, and your lawyer and inspector should review the final wording.

• Product named as EN 590 with edition year (for example EN 590:2025) and the climate grade or arctic class.
• Full property table attached, every line with limit, unit and test method from EN 590.
• Destination standard compared line by line; stricter destination limits (density, cetane, lubricity, PAH, biodiesel) guaranteed in the contract.
• Sulphur test method appropriate for 10 mg/kg (EN ISO 20846, EN ISO 20884 or EN ISO 13032).
• FAME content stated (B0 or a maximum), and oxidation-stability method suited to that FAME level.
• Place of quality determination agreed: load port, discharge port, or both with a tolerance.
• Independent inspector named, appointment and cost allocated, sampling under ISO 3170/3171.
• Retained samples, referee laboratory and dispute timetable written in, with interpretation under EN ISO 4259-2.
• Sample CoQ from the actual source tank or a recent batch reviewed, with dates consistent with the shipment schedule.
• Certificates to be verifiable directly with the issuing inspector or laboratory.

Sources [1][2][8][10]