Gasoline


Your favorite Exxon station is very likely not owned or operated by Exxon and the same is true for the rest of the major oil companies. The Chevron’s and BP’s of the world largely distanced themselves from the branded retail gasoline business following the mega-mergers of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s due to financial and regulatory factors.

In fact, these businesses – that most people still refer to as gas stations – are now thought of by the industry as convenience stores that sell motor fuels. The downstream segment – refining and marketing – of the oil and gas business has been marginally profitable for decades. But the vertically integrated model first championed by John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil remains attractive to the majors because owning refineries provides a guaranteed market for their often highly-profitable upstream businesses of finding and developing oil and gas. The upstream was often thought of as subsidizing the downstream, as Steve Coll described it in his book about ExxonMobil, “Private Empire.” Keep reading →

There is a contentious debate underway regarding mandated ethanol blending into gasoline that touches on issues like food versus fuel and the sanctity of free markets. The severe drought that hit the US this past summer reduced corn crop yields – a major ethanol feedstock – and sparked calls for a waiver of the Renewable Fuels Standard that reportedly uses some 40% of the US corn crop to produce ethanol.

When Breaking Energy recently sat down with two industry analysts and asked them about mandated ethanol blending, we received decidedly anti-RFS viewpoints. In this video, David Rewcastle, Senior Energy Analyst with Source Capital Group and Michael Lynch, President and Director of Global Petroleum Service with Strategic Energy Economic Research explain why government-mandated ethanol blending into gasoline is flawed and suggest how the system might be improved. Keep reading →


In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, it’s still unclear whether consumers will see a nationwide gas spike.

One bit of good news: The Northeast’s largest refinery is coming back online. The Philadelphia Energy Solutions plant, which processes a third of the region’s oil, said it was “without issues.” Keep reading →


Americans spend a lot of money on oil – about $632 billion a year. A lot of that money goes to paying the costs of getting the dinosaur juice out of the ground in the first place, including exploring for potential reserves, drilling test wells, drilling production wells, pumping the stuff, and transporting it.


Refining has long been a low-margin business, not for the faint of heart. The difference between what refiners pay for input and what they get for output, known as the crack spread, is traded on major oil markets. It sometimes goes negative, meaning refiners lose money on every barrel.

In the 1970s, with widespread worries over fuel supplies, US refiners overbuilt capacity. Since the 1980s, refiners have sold, merged, and shut down excess capacity, and upgraded capabilities, resulting in fewer refiners but more capacity actually utilized and better economics overall. Keep reading →


Sanctions against Iran, uprisings in oil producing nations – headlines often focus on what’s happening with global oil supply.

But they tend to overlook refining, the link between crude oil and consumers that is critical to assessing the strategic effects of those events. Keep reading →


As US natural gas producers note the benefits of existing infrastructure while seeking ways of stimulating demand for newly abundant shale gas, questions continue to swirl about the total cost of conversion.

Beyond the potential of natural gas for the long-haul trucking industry, as championed by Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, gas advocates say private cars are a clear target market, since gas as an auto fuel is currently roughly less than half the cost of gasoline, while at the same time emitting much lower levels of greenhouse gases. Keep reading →


It’s hard to avoid the issue of gasoline prices during an election year. But in an effort to avoid gasoline altogether, some large companies are avoiding the issue altogether by cashing in on significant fuel cost savings and accelerating moves to switch over their vehicle fleets to run on compressed natural gas.

In the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas, companies like AT&T and Verizon have teamed up with Clean Energy Fuels to save roughly $1.50 to $2.00 per gallon on fuel by converting to CNG. This video features Ken Nicholson, General Manger of Clean Energy Fuels in Dallas discussing the benefits of CNG and Brent Pope, Director of Sales for BAF Technologies talking about how his company converts gasoline and diesel fueled vehicles to run on CNG. Keep reading →


The Fueleconomy.gov mobile website allows users to estimate their car’s fuel mileage per gallon and other information related to their vehicle’s fuel usage. according to the Mobile Gov blog. The mobile website is maintained by the U.S. Department of Energy and is accessible on any phone that has web browser functionality. According to DOE, the mobile website users can calculate gas mileage (MPG), annual fuel costs, annual petroleum use, and the carbon footprint information for your car or truck. You can find more mobile products like the Fueleconomy.gov mobile website on the USA.gov Apps Gallery.


Depending on who you ask, the impending closure of a major Philadelphia refinery will either increase U.S. vulnerability to a terrorist attack on its energy supply, or simply shift demand to other suppliers of petroleum products.

Senior officials from federal energy and homeland security departments debated the loss of U.S. refining capacity with industry representatives and politicians at a field hearing of a Congressional committee outside Philadelphia on Monday. Keep reading →

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