The place our gasoline comes from
From refinery to client
U.S. petroleum refineries make gasoline and different petroleum merchandise from crude oil and different liquids which might be produced in the USA or imported from different international locations. Practically all the gasoline bought in the USA is produced in the USA.
Most gasoline strikes from refineries by pipelines to massive storage terminals close to consuming areas. Gasoline and different petroleum merchandise are despatched by shared pipelines in batches. These batches aren’t bodily separated in pipelines and a few mixing, or commingling, of merchandise happens. Due to this mixing, the gasoline and different merchandise have to be examined as they go away pipelines to see in the event that they meet required specs. If the merchandise fail to fulfill native, state, or federal specs, they’re despatched again to a refinery for added processing.
Motor gasoline is completed at mixing terminals for supply to fueling stations
From massive storage terminals, gasoline is often despatched by truck to smaller mixing terminals for processing into finished motor gasoline. That is often the place fuel ethanol is mixed into gasoline. Tanker vans ship the completed motor gasoline from mixing terminals to fueling stations.
Can prospects discover out which nation or state the gasoline at a location station comes from?
The U.S. Vitality Data Administration (EIA) can’t establish the precise origin of gasoline bought at fueling stations. The gasoline an organization sells in its branded fueling stations just isn’t essentially produced by that firm.
Gasoline manufacturers get blended throughout cargo
Gasoline is bought at greater than 100,000 stores throughout the nation, and plenty of are unbranded sellers that will promote gasoline produced by totally different corporations. Branded stations could not essentially promote gasoline produced by the businesses that personal the stations. Gasoline from totally different refineries is usually mixed for cargo by pipelines, and totally different corporations that personal service stations in the identical space could buy gasoline on the similar bulk storage and distribution terminal.
The one distinction between gasoline at one firm’s fueling stations and gasoline bought by one other firm is the small quantity of components that some corporations mix into the gasoline after it leaves the pipeline and earlier than it will get to their fueling stations.
Crude oil additionally will get blended on the refinery
Even when EIA may decide the origin of the gasoline bought at fueling stations, the supply of the crude oil and different liquids used at refineries could fluctuate. Most refiners use a mixture of crude oils from numerous home and overseas sources. The combination of crude oils can change based mostly on the relative price and availability of crude oil from these sources.
Final up to date: February 23, 2022