A reader e-mailed me today that two stations in Lincoln Parish have converted to ethanol gas. One is the Raceway at 1804 Farmerville Hwy in Ruston and the second is Cranfords Northside at 2893 LA Hwy 33 in Ruston also. That now makes 64 stations I've had to take off my website's list of Ethanol Free Gas List since Marathon Oil in Garyville stopped selling ethanol free gas on June 21st. Marathon was the largest remaining supplier of ethanol free gas to south and particularly north Louisiana before they abandoned their customers and like the other majors, started selling only ethanol gas. I've heard that several distributors in turn abandoned Marathon due to their refusal to sell ethanol free gas. I've heard that they said that they could get ethanol gas at many other refineries and no longer had to stick with Marathon as they did in the past to get ethanol free gas. I've also heard that as a result of this, Marathon's Louisiana gasoline sales plummeted in July, the month after they stopped selling ethanol free gas. Hopefully they will learn from their mistake............but I doubt it. It's usually greed for the $0.45/gallon VEETC tax credit that drives them to sell all their gas as ethanol gas. It will be interesting to see what the "major" refiners do in 2012 since it appears they will lose their "gravy train" tax credit. The US Senate has already voted overwhelmingly not to extend it past the current December 31st expiration date, and my US Congressman from my district tells me the House will also vote on this soon, and he predicts, like the Senate, they too will vote to kill the tax credit subsidy to refineries.
Today, I'd like to offer a suggestion to gas stations, convenience and grocery stores that sell only ethanol free gas. Readers, if you know of a station that indicates to you that they are thinking of converting to sell ethanol gas because they can't compete financially with stations selling ethanol gas in their area, offer this alternative to them.
Most of the stations that are currently selling ethanol free gas are older "Mom and Pop" stations, grocery and convenience stores. Most have older pumps that are not capable of blending mid grade gas in the pump like newer stations. Therefore, most have 3 tanks in the ground - one for regular (87 octane), another for mid grade (89 octane) and a third for premium (91 octane). In most cases, the plumbing of these older stations tanks have valves that enable isolating one tank from the other two and lining it up to feed one pump or bank of pumps. By doing this, the station owner can elect to put his smallest tank into regular ethanol free gas and label the pump or set of pumps as "NO ETHANOL or ETHANOL FREE" and then sell regular and premium ethanol gas in his other two tanks, and of course, label them "Contains Up to 10% Ethanol".
I have about several stations on my list that have done this very arrangement, and all have reported huge increases in sales. This way, they can compete with the other stations selling ethanol gas (and often "out price them") and also keep their ethanol free gas customers. I suggested this arrangement to one store owner in Ascension Parish when he dropped his contract with a "major" refiner, which allowed him to sell ONLY ethanol gas. His contract with the "major" expired at the end of 2010, and he went independent. He told me in June of this year that his sales have gone from about 40,000 gals/ month when he was with the major refiner to over 100,000 gals/month since going independent with this tank arrangement, allowing him to sell ethanol gas and also keep his ethanol free gas customers.
So, if you are friends with a store owner who is selling ethanol FREE gas only, and who may be struggling to compete with other stores in his area that are selling ethanol gas, you may want to suggest this tank arrangement to him, provided of course, that he has 3 tanks.
Let me know if you know of any station owners that have gone to this arrangement. I show them as selling both ethanol free and ethanol on my website's "Ethanol Free Gas Station List".
Comments welcome............way2gopete@yahoo.com
"Pete"
