Speedway buys out Hess fuel station chain: What does this mean for E85?

I've recently learned about the bombshell in the fuel business known as Speedway LLC's acquisition of Hess Corporation's convenience store/fuel station chain. This $2.87 billion deal between Speedway parent Marathon Oil Corporation and Hess, will add up to 1,256 stations to Speedway's portfolio.

Speedway currently has approximately 1,480 stations, with new stations currently opening down in Tennessee and in West Virginia. Approximately one in eight of their stores carries E85 Ethanol (by definition 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline) as of this posting. Doing some digging, I found eight additional locations that opened with E85 available, including one in the Interstate 69 town of Imlay City, Michigan - not too far from the border. I've learned that as is the case with the midwest grocery giant Meijer, all newly-built Speedway fuel stations - and Speedway stations that undergo construction or renovations which do work with the tanks and pumps - will add E85. Numerous stores are receiving renovations to keep up with the modern convenience store model, and are adding the successful Speedy Cafe, where you can order specialty food and drinks through a touchscreen POS and pay for your food as you would any other purchases at Speedway.

When the transition of all of these stores over to the Speedway chain is complete, Speedway will nearly double their number of stores. To my knowledge, none of the Hess stations carry E85 (please correct me if I'm wrong on that one)... but we're dealing with a much different Speedway company than we had in 2012, when Speedway acquired the lower Great Lakes chain Gas City. At that time, Speedway yanked E85 pumps from most of the stores they acquired, either replacing the fuel with racing fuel, or leaving the tank unused altogether. Times have changed since 2012. In 2013, Speedway went on a massive adding "binge", if you will. In addition to new builds, and an announcement of expansion into the Nashville, TN and Pittsburgh markets, Speedway converted one of the two underground diesel tanks at many of their stores over to E85. This filled in a number of gaps in E85 availability! I'm hoping that the same will occur to the Hess locations that are being converted to Speedway stations.

This would bring some much needed E85 availability to the eastern seaboard, which is currently severely lacking.

Yes, there is limited ethanol production in this region. But this is about to change. I will divulge into this in a later post.

I commend Speedway for their commitment to adding E85. This is a huge step in further bringing ethanol as an alternative fuel to the market, and we couldn't be more grateful!

A little bit about where I come from

So I am known as a very vocal ethanol advocate. This is nothing that I can, nor want to, deny. As part of this advocacy work, I regularly comment on newspaper and opinion articles that both support, and attack, ethanol.

On Friday, I commented on a story found on a statewide Michigan newspaper called Mlive. You can find the article here. I wrote a response to Nicki Polan, the author of the opinion article, who is the executive director for the Michigan Boating Industries Association. Scroll down if you would like to read my comment. In response to what I stated, I read a comment that admittedly got to me. Again, I can not, nor do I want to, deny this. 

The comment reads, as follows:

People are on to your corn/ethanol lobby misinformation, Aaron.
You and the other corn/ethanol lobby shills are going to 'up your game'- everyone from the restaurant owners to environmentalists to food security advocates to boat owners are done with your lobby's worn out attempts to 'baffle them with bullspit'   

End of quote.

When you join a fight this contentious, over something as controversial to some as ethanol, stuff like this is bound to be said. Internet trolls will come out against what you are saying and do so repeatedly.
What I don't understand here is that on the interwebs, ethanol activists like myself can be automatically grouped into "shills"... whereas the folks who do the same advocacy for oil don't, at least as much. Not every issue solely has folks who are paid to do and say what they do.

It calls into question why I do what I do. To be blunt, it's because I give a darn. I give a darn about climate change, economic security, those who work for a living, lower fuel prices, the virtual glut in the market created as a result of the radically explosive growth in fracking and Canadian tar sands development, etcetera, etcetera. Whatever you say about my views, and the bias I may now appear to have, no one, and I repeat, no one, is feeding words into my mouth. I joined this fight on my own, and without any connections to anyone anywhere in the ethanol industry. 

I drove 1,600 miles all the way to Washington, DC (round trip) to testify in front of the Environmental Protection Agency in regards to proposed volume reductions in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) back in December. I did this on my own time, and my own money. Admittedly, the two free hotel nights from the dad certainly helped. However, no one reimbursed me for my trip, nor did I request for assistance. I actually quit my job at Rite Aid the week prior to the hearing, which was my primary source of income. Because I did not find out about this hearing until the week before, I was unable to give the traditional one month notice of a request for time off. Even though I had others who were willing to shift their schedules around or fill in for me while I was gone, and even though it was only two days I was requesting off, I still had my boss bluntly say "no" when I asked for the time off. With lawn mowing season long since having ended, and with snow yet to fall, I did not have any additional income coming in until later that month. I've talked to numerous folks at the pump about ethanol, and I've done a lot of work for the ethanol industry on my own behalf. 

Full disclosure, I am now employed by Carbon Green BioEnergy, a company that owns the ethanol plant I work at in Lake Odessa, Michigan, and manages two others. I have been employed there since December. Continuing with full disclosure, I am compensated for some of the advocacy work I do (by a different employer). Yes, I was incorrect in stating that I am not paid for this on the Mlive article. However, this has only been a recent source of income. I have been a staunch ethanol supporter since late 2012 after I bought my first car. This work that I am now being paid to do, is not completely replacing work I did on my own time, and is to no extent any different than the work I was doing before. Nothing has changed in that regard. Yes, because I clean pipes and floors in an ethanol plant, and am paid by another ethanol company to do activist work, I no longer have the appearance of total nonbias in my views, opinions, statements, or actions. But let me make it absolutely clear: my views, opinions, statements, and actions, have not changed since I began advocating for ethanol in 2012. They will not change in the future, either. 

Intelligence is the ability to hold two very different ideas or beliefs, and still be able to function. And it's hard for me to say that I have not rejected the arguments that I am combating through this advocacy work. But this is where doing your research and actually going out and talking to people come into play. Actions speak louder than words. However my bias may happen to appear, I am going into a career with ethanol because it's what I'm good at and it is where my passion is. The only "influence" I have is a father who uses E85 in his state vehicle and mentions it from time to time. I have no agricultural background aside from the folks who I've met in Ohio, Michigan, and Iowa, and I have no prior background in ethanol before my activist career began in 2012. I did not get any of this work with the industry until after I made myself known. That's what you call self-made.

The difference between the folks on the side of the debate that I argue for, and the folks on the side who are vocal against ethanol, is that the ethanol industry does not spend all of its time attacking the oil industry. Yes, obviously there is some of that going on. But the true factor that sets ethanol and the folks who represent and/or advocate for it apart from those who argue against it, is that we spend time educating the public about our product. Yes, talking down the competitor's product is a practice that virtually anyone in the advertising business has participated in - to which the ethanol industry can not take exception. But after a while of someone simply saying "oil is bad for the environment", and "oil has contributed to wars" (both of which are true), you are no longer doing your product a favor. A large part of why I jumped into this debate is because I believe that it isn't good enough to just complain about the problem.  You have to do something about it. The United States was not built on this sense of morality (or lack thereof), but rather by those who realized that actions speak louder than words. It's only right that we combat climate change and economic security amongst a myriad of other issues with that mindset. I will elaborate on why I believe in ethanol specifically to combat these growing concerns in later posts. 

With the explosive growth of fracking and development in Canadian tar sands, the long-standing argument that so much of our oil is imported from overseas is beginning to weaken. But that does not eliminate the fact that some of it does still come from overseas; nor does it discredit the fact that, forgive my cynicism here, gasoline prices will jump on even the smallest hint of tension in the middle east. With Michigan being known for gasoline price hikes from 20 cents to as much as 50 cents in a matter of hours, you don't have to tell us twice about how easily gasoline prices are affected by middle east tension. 

I am not fed words, and am not told what to say and what not to say. Whether it is believed or not, my views, opinions, words, and actions are mine and mine alone. I do not take pride in simply repeating what someone else says. That's not what a leader does. It's not what I do.

All things ethanol - a brief introduction

Hello all, and thanks for checking out this blog. You will see opinions, links to other ethanol articles, discussions of news updates in the ethanol industry, and much more! Having been raised by a very pro-ethanol state-of-Michigan-employed Dad, I have no other influence on my views of ethanol, or background in agriculture. I care passionately about the environment, the economy, and many other factors that have shaped my support and activism for ethanol.

I will try to post here daily. As a disclaimer, I should note that my opinions and views are my own, and no one is telling me what to say. After all, it isn't hard to research this stuff on the interwebs and gain experience by talking to folks on every step of the ethanol line, from the growing of the corn (primary feedstock for ethanol currently, though this is slowly changing!) all the way to the sale of the finished product. If you have any questions or comments, post them here! But please, keep it civil.