Ethanol free gas

corvette8n

corvette8n

Well-known member
Went to a local station that advertises ethanol free gas to check out the prices only, 10% ethanol $2.18 gal. Ethanol free $3.09 gal, what is your experience in your areas?
 
Ethanol free runs about the same price as premium. Lots of stations have it, so that might be a factor.
 
Ethanol free regular in our ares runs from 20-40 cents more depending on the brand. Ethanol free premium has been at almost 1.00 over most of the time.
 
87 octane ethanol-free gas is about 20 cents more a gallon in this area. That makes it about $2.29 at the present time.
 
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A friend in the business told me that ethanol-free regular is 87 octane straight gasoline that normally has 10% ethanol added to raise the octane to 92 to make premium. So his company charges the premium price for the ethanol free (about 20-25 cents more). So ethanol free gas is readily available; stations just have to order it before the refinery adds the ethanol. Of course, the station has to have an extra tank and pump. My friend's company dropped bio diesel to sell ethanol free gas. He said that they were selling only about 20 gallons a day of bio!
 
mrtexas said:
Funny it is cheaper to make gasoline without ethanol!
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Not really, because the non-ethonel is a premium fuel blend with the ethanol left out. The ethanol should be an expensive additive, but because of the government subsidies it's not. The other factor is low demand!
 
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The government figured it out that "MOST" Diesel vehicles using diesel (Early on) were trucks that were very inefficient mileage wise, so the more they charge a semi driver for fuel (and who travels thousands and thousands of miles) month after month, the more tax they pay, the more money they make. Then when cars with diesels came out that were super efficient mileage wise, they started loosing the "high" revenues so they had to change the "base" price of Diesel to accommodate the potential and tremendous loss of taxes both federal and road.
 
I've done the math, a diesel car is not worth it if you don't travel on the highway "ALL" the time. When you factor the added cost for diesel to gas and the average mileage around town to gas, its about a wash to slightly more of a cost for a diesel vehicle (and that's based on cars that are highly efficient diesel cars, not pick-ups/SUV's). And now, some of the manufacturers make you buy Urea additive to help with emissions of the diesel engine so that's an added expense too.
 
adileo said:
Same logic with Diesel - should be cheaper and its not
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No, there is a good reason diesel is more expensive. The EPA dictated that the ppm sulfur in diesel should be 15 ppm, a level almost impossible to make and lower even than gasoline. There are many fewer producers of diesel now as not every refiner has a spare $1 Billion to build a new diesel hydrotreater. Diesel used to be 10,000ppm sulfur. Try taking out 99+% of anything! There is much less supply of diesel. Less supply = higher prices.

When the dictate first came out the XOM refinery in Beaumont was the only refinery that could make it on the Gulf coast.

Diesel used to be cheap to make as it was just the same as home heating oil. All you had to do was take some distilled gas oil from the crude unit and blend it with a little kerosene. Now all has to be severely hydrotreated to reduce the sulfur to almost nil. And guess what? Hydrotreating reduces the yield of diesel as well, so less supply or run more crude to make the same.
 
rockfla said:
The government figured it out that "MOST" Diesel vehicles using diesel (Early on) were trucks that were very inefficient mileage wise, so the more they charge a semi driver for fuel (and who travels thousands and thousands of miles) month after month, the more tax they pay, the more money they make. Then when cars with diesels came out that were super efficient mileage wise, they started loosing the "high" revenues so they had to change the "base" price of Diesel to accommodate the potential and tremendous loss of taxes both federal and road.
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Wow, you really believe this conspiracy theory? The big oil companies are too stupid to manipulate anything. I worked for the biggest XOM for 32 years. Big oil would love to set the price of fuel. I can assure you they don't like reducing the price of gasoline from $4 a gallon to $1.75 here today near my house.
 
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I have heard the diesel costs more because of the demand from overseas where there are a lot more vehicles using diesel.

Supply and demand???
 
I would think it is demand. I've read that a 42 gallon barrel of crude only produces 12 gallons of diesel compared to 19 gallons of gasoline. More and more trucks and cars (not to mention other large machinery) is fueled by diesel.
 
In Minnesota the 87 octane is required by state regulations to have 10% ethanol. So at the refinery you would get 84 sub grade add the 10% ethanol and you have Oxy 87 10% ethanol. The only non ethanol gas you can sell to motor vehicles is 91 octane or better. With the exceptions of a marina, they can sell straight 87 without ethanol. Each state has different regulations on ethanol. It really does not belong in the gas.
 
Eth is in gasoline to make corn growers happy. If it was all left up to the consumer to choose what they want, there would probably be no Eth in gas. It is against the law to dispense non eth gas into a car in Kalifornia

Tim
 
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