Are off-brand gasolines okay?

[sfloriII]

With the rising cost of gasoline here in the States and the need to use high-test in my car, I've thought about filling up with gasoline from some off-brand stations.

When I become a member of Costco, I can get gas for about 25 cents cheaper than brand name stations.

Are the fuels from these stations safe to use. Anyone know what brand Costco really is?

Thanks!

[KirkVining]

I don't know man, my SL seems to run the best on Chevron Premium. I've also experinced something else that keeps me from cheap gas - a lot of those off-brand stations have been known to fill their high-test tanks with plus or regular. I've gotten a few pingy loads that way. The name brand company stations, big nasty planet-polluting oil companies that they are, seem to be some how totally honest in this regard and I always get what I pay for. You'd probably be ok with Costco, I do Ok with Sam's, at least in getting the correct octane. I've done enough computer work here in Houston to tell you this: neither one of them carry any particular "brand" of gas - they're grabbing whatever's low on the spot market, could be any brand.

Kirk
83 280 SL
84 Porsche 944
etc

[Chamorro]

Here's what I've noticed, on my 190 and on my pickup:
Chevron & 76 gas seemed best
Mobil, Costco gas was good
Shell, Arco gas wasn't very good.

Gasoline, diesel and jet fuel guzzled by cars, trucks, buses, planes, trains and boats has become as important to us as water.

Other than knowing how to twist off the fuel cap, operate the self-serve pumps and complain about oil sheiks and prices, do you know how the energy that powers rubber tires, steel wheels, props and turbines gets to us?

"Getting Around" hopes to enlighten you.

I know you know that Exxon, CoGo's, BP, Gulf, Sunoco, Texaco, A-Plus, 7-Eleven, Mobil, Citgo and every other brand of gasoline sold in the Pittsburgh region travels thousands of miles to get here.

But did you know all brands are basically generic as they flow from refineries through the same pipelines?

Did you know regular unleaded gasoline, premium grade gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, kerosene, propane and other distilled petroleum products also share the same pipelines to Pittsburgh and every other place?

Did you know there's a nationwide network of 114,000 miles of the underground pipes that collects crude oil from oil fields still in production in the U.S. and transport it to refineries for processing?

Did you know there's a related nationwide network of 85,500 miles of pipes, up to 48 inches in diameter, that then distributes the petroleum products from the refineries to communities such as ours for use in manufacturing, home heating and commercial, public and personal vehicles?

I didn't.

Since this is a transportation-related column rooted in gas and oil, I thought I better find out. So I checked out the region's fuel line.

With the help of pumps, two-thirds of our fuel flows to us through a highly sophisticated, well-developed series of pipelines. The rest, along with many specialty petroleum products, comes by barge (28 percent), truck (4 percent) and train (2 percent).

Because we depend mostly on pipelines, I contacted the Washington, D.C.-based Association of Oil Pipe Lines, which represents owners and operators of the lines delivering about 13 billion barrels of petroleum products nationwide each year. (That's 546 billion gallons!)

Officials said the Pittsburgh region was well connected to the network. Separate major supply lines come from the South, Midwest and East, helping explain why we haven't experienced gas shortages and why prices have been equal to or slightly lower than those in many other areas.

The three refinery pipes coming to and/or through Pittsburgh originate in the oil-rich Gulf Coast, the Midwest and the Baltimore-New Jersey area that's supplied by foreign oil. We're in a good spot.

Pittsburgh also is an important destination for petroleum products moved by barge because of its location on the inland waterways and proximity to major markets.

No matter how they arrive, gas and diesel fuel are stored in tanks at regional distribution centers, nearly all of which can be found along Tri-State area rivers.

Neville Island on the Ohio River is our biggest depository of gas and diesel. Petroleum Products Corp., which recently acquired the Exxon terminal, and Gulf Oil are the major players on Neville. Buckeye Pipe Line Co. delivers to both of them. They also sell to other fuel companies.

Big tank trucks deliver the fuel from the terminals to the end of the line -- service stations and local home heating oil depots.

If everything is one big batch coming out of the same pipe, what's the difference in gasoline brands?

"Once the basic product fulfills the requirements that any refinery can meet, the individual companies put in additives specific to their sales," said Michelle Joy, general counsel for the oil pipeline trade group. "The additives can do everything from boost engine performance to clean the engine with a special detergent."

Amoco is the only gas segregated from other brands, she said. "It's a clear gas, an exclusive environmental product not made by anyone else. When we're moving Amoco, we're moving it as a separate batch."

If everything comes out of the same pipe, back-to-back, how do they separate the dozens of products and grades of gasoline making long journeys from refineries to markets?

A briefing paper from the Association of Oil Pipe Lines and American Petroleum Institute explains:

"The physical principles of hydraulics keep batches of liquid from blending and contaminating one another except where they actually touch. The 'interfaces' from the different shipments are separated out when they arrive at destinations and are re-processed.

"Sometimes batches are separated by metal 'pigs' or plugs that keep batches from touching. Pigs are also used for cleaning interior surfaces of pipelines to help prevent corrosion. Specially developed 'smart pigs' containing instrumentation packages are used to double check pipeline integrity."

Since 9/11, the pipeline industry has adopted new security measures to protect the nation's fuel supply lines, including a trunk line along the East Coast holding and moving one-fourth of the U.S. daily consumption at a time.

Pittsburgh International Airport receives jet fuel through underground pipelines. You'll have to take my word for it. I'm not going to say how many or where.

Courtesy of the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, I also thought you'd like to know:

Less than one teaspoon is lost for every barrel (42 gallons) of petroleum product moved every 1,000 miles through the underground pipeline network.

The "shipping cost" for moving a gallon of gasoline from a Houston refinery to New York City is 3 cents.

More than 100 Air Force, Army, Marine Corps and Navy installations in the United States have direct connections to the interstate pipeline network.

The U.S. military uses roughly $3.6 billion worth of fuel each year. Jet fuel for the military and commercial airlines passes through several special filtering processes in order to keep it pure.

"All the while that products are moving through the pipelines, computers monitor and test them," Joy said. "We keep records for proof" in case of problems or lawsuits."

I keep a record of my gasoline, too. It's updated every month on my credit card statement.

[MTI]

Unless there's enough demand for one product, a refinery will produce a "base" gasoline, which is either sold as is or blended with a manufacturer's additives for a specific distributor/retailer. Unbranded gasoline is typically the "base" fuel.

[Hatterasguy]

There all the same buy from the cheapist place!

[mzsmbs]

yes and no, same fuel but brand names tend to have higher QC in storing, trasporting etc... my nissan coughs and just runs like crap if I pour cheap gas. It likes Shell, Marathon, Speedway, etc..

[Botnst]

"They're all the same...".

Not quite. The start out basicly the same. They have parameters for paraffin content and otehr kinds of hydrocarbons that relate to flashpoint and oxidation characteristics. But the mfrs must meet lots of local codes so that slug of gas MedMech described so beautifully is modified differently in each market.

In some cases the hydrocarbon mix is adjusted with ethanol, which is produced by farm subsidy for early presidential votes in the cornbelt. Want to do poorly in Iowa running for prez? Push for removing the ethanol subsidy.

My favorite scam is the MTBE antiknock additive that EPA negotiated with some localities and oil companies as a tertraethyl lead substitute. Then it turned-out that MTBE was leaking into the groundwater and has some serious public health effects. Well, the fed, state, and local gov all jumped to one side and left the oil companies to be the bad guys. Its easier to sue and beat an oil company than a gov, so oil companies became a great target for lawsuits. Oil companies need to bear their share of the responsibility, but so do the local, state and fed govs for that bit of stupidity.

Bot

[jpb5151]

Originally posted by MedMech

Since this is a transportation-related column rooted in gas and oil, I thought I better find out. So I checked out the region's fuel line.

Amoco is the only gas segregated from other brands, she said. "It's a clear gas, an exclusive environmental product not made by anyone else. When we're moving Amoco, we're moving it as a separate batch."

That's lotsa information. Thanks for posting it.

Maybe there really _is_ something to my finding that Amoco / BP Ultimate is the only gasoline in the city that doesn't put out an intense sulphur smell in our car.

[jimmydean]

I think that one of the things to be worried about is how clean the gas is. How are the filters? Costco I imagine would be pretty good. Most everything else they do is good quality.

jimmy

[KirkVining]

Here in Houston, it helps the profits if we throw a couple of shovelfulls of swamp mud in the vat. It looks just like crude, anyway.

I have a friend in the gas biz. Last I talked to him three years ago, he said Toledo, Ohio had only three distrbuters for gas, though there are dozens of different stations. All gas is the same.