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!