Check out this detailed Wall Street Journal follow-up to OilWatchdog’s investigation of Chevron’s resistance to renewable fuels at their gas stations. It also tells how companies other than Chevron effectively bar the sale of high-ethanol and other renewable fuels. Credited in the story is the Automotive United Trades Organization, operated by Tim Hamilton, who cooperated on OilWatchdog’s investigation.
The Journal gets both the what and the why:
“Although some oil executives voice enthusiasm for alternative fuels, oil-company policies make it harder for many service stations to stock a fuel called E85, a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. …
Oil companies lose sales every time a driver chooses E85, and they employ a variety of tactics that help keep the fuel out of stations that bear the company name.”
The story details how the oil companies prevent the sale of E85 or any other renewables:
“Exxon Mobil Corp.’s standard contract with Exxon stations bars them from buying fuel from anybody but itself, and it doesn’t sell E85. …“Even if [an exception] is granted, the station must follow rules including one that says E85 must be dispensed from its own unit, not part of an existing multihose dispenser.
“A ConocoPhillips memo to franchisees says the company doesn’t allow E85 sales on the primary island, under the covered canopy where gasoline is sold. Stations must find another spot. …
“A Chevron Corp. agreement with franchisees also appears to discourage selling E85 under the main canopy. It says dealers offering alternative fuels cannot ‘deceive the public as to the source of the product,’ a phrase that some gas-station interests interpret to mean that E85 can’t be sold under the main canopy.… Chevron says it requires Chevron- and Texaco-branded stations to keep ‘E85’ off their primary signs listing fuel prices… [so] the stations have to erect a separate sign.”
The point of all these conditions is, as OilWatchdog reported last Thursday, to cost station owners so much money and require so much extra space that almost none can make financial sense out of meeting the conditions. As the companies intend, E85 is effectively banned from sale.
Here’s OilWatchdog’s original letter to Chevron, and its reply to Chevron’s initial protests.