Well, I agree that Wikipedia is an unreliable source - but 'the website of BBC Focus Magazine' publishing a non-scientific paragraph* with no attibution or evidential backup isn't much better. At least with Wiki there's a *chance* it was written by someone who knows or cares ;)
If you keep it in a decent container that's not exposed to the air (ie so it can't evaporate or perform any sort of hygroscopic action) then it'll be fine for some considerable time. Straight chain alkanes are pretty stable molecules (think of how long they've been hanging about in the ground for), so if there's any 'gunk' forming in there then you might like to ask the refinery when they added that's causing the problem!
*'more oily' ffs, that's not an explanation.
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Wed 29 Jun 2011, 18:02,
archived)
If you keep it in a decent container that's not exposed to the air (ie so it can't evaporate or perform any sort of hygroscopic action) then it'll be fine for some considerable time. Straight chain alkanes are pretty stable molecules (think of how long they've been hanging about in the ground for), so if there's any 'gunk' forming in there then you might like to ask the refinery when they added that's causing the problem!
*'more oily' ffs, that's not an explanation.