Again, there are absolutely no differences in the base fuel (pre-additive) between brands at the pump. Some brands might have different purchasing guidelines for crude - but that doesn't affect what you buy at the pump. Bulk Terminals don't store fuel by "brand" just by octane. Your Chevron gas comes from the exact same storage tank that supplies Wal-Mart, Costco, Texaco, and every other fueling station in your region. The gas in the storage tanks might come from a Chevron, Texaco, or Sunoco refinery (or even all three). But, you would have no way of knowing where it came from.

HI,

Agreed 100%. To add. at the Refinery, they don't maintain or process the Crude separately either - it is all mixed together before refining.

This is because the different sourced Crudes all have slightly different content with respect to Sulphur, Water, and some other elements.

Refining the Crude in Bulk allows for greater quality control and a much more homogenous end product, not to mention the cost savings over processing the different Crudes separately...

Happy Motoring!...Jim'99

Hi,

Also, you have to understand the Gasoline Infrastructure. If you live in the middle states, your Gas is probably refined in Texas and sent to your area via pipeline.

Your Oil Company may add 1 million Gallons to the Refinery (which then taskes about 10 days to get into the pipeline). The local Distrubutor may pull 1 million gallons from the pipeline today for sale, even though the Crude they sent to the Refinery isn't refined yet. So, they are pulling someone else's Gas from the pipeline, and so on.

The Oil Companies spend massive amounts of money on Marketing their products so you believe they're better than everyone else's. From some of the comments received in this thread, it appears to be fairly effective.

Fact is, it's much more important to buy Gas based on the local Retailers. Buy from reputable retailers. Last fall when Gas prices spiked, I saw one small independant retailer adding water to their underground tank with a Garden Hose! Adding 500 gal. to a 25,000 gal. tank would probably have little effect on the Car (most Cars ECU will compensate) but, at $3/gal., that's a hefty extra profit for the retailer. Also, dirt and moisture accumulate in underground tanks. You should try to buy your Gas from the Busiest station in your area, because their Tanks are constantly being Flushed and filled with fresh Gas and so will accumulate much less contaminates and moisture.

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

I'm fairly certain I saw this on CNBC and the claim was that there are a few brands that do not import ANY of their crude from the middle east.
While I agree there is chemically perhaps no difference in unrefined crude, economically its a big a difference one should consider before buying.

"America is addicted to oil from unstable parts of the world" Dubya

Hi,

In principal I agree with you. But, practically speaking, if we restricted our purchases to non-Arabian Crude Oil, prices would rise.

But first, realize that Oil imports are down by in excess of 15% over historical high levels (as a comparison of Oil $ as a % of GNP) in the US, due to some environmental concern, but mostly more efficient vehicles.

And it's a common misconception that all the Arabs are unfriendly to the US. Our #1 importer is Saudi Arabia (an ally - small case), followed, in order, by Mexico, Kuwait, Venezuela and then the United Arab Emerates (UAE). These are all our friends and reducing these imports, and the subsequent revenues generated for these countries, could have an unstabling effect for them politically.

Most of the Oil from the Bad Guys in the Middle East, is sold to, and consumed by, Asia, principally Korea, Malaysia, but especially China (PRC).

So, if you want to be patriotic, and at the same time conserve Oil, stop buying Goods made in China. That has a double effect of reducing Oil consumption worldwide and protecting the US economy as our Trade deficit with the PRC is the Largest and getting larger. We want what they make, but they don't buy what we make creating this deficit...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

I kind of doubt that a company would choose not to purchase a commodity for the best price - but maybe so. The middle east actually accounts for about 17% of our imports or about equal to the percentage we import from Canada.

My actual point is not about whether the gas is chemically similar. My point is it's the SAME GAS. When you buy Chevron gas you might actually be getting oil imported by Conoco and refined by Citgo. It's then pumped through pipelines to bulk storage terminals which serve all gas vendors.

As such, it's literally impossible to buy only non-middle east gas since there is no way to know where it came from. However, if you feel strongly about the subject, and you apparently do, I suppose you could still only buy gas from Gas Stations whose parent company doesn't at least import from the middle east. Your gas might still have come from there - but at least the company you are patronizing doesn't buy there.

By the way, if we're avoiding oil from "unstable parts of the world", then we're going to have to stop importing from Columbia (1.5%), Ecuador (1%), Venezuala (11%), Algeria (3%), Nigeria (7%), Gabon (1%), and Angola (3%). Thus leaving only Canada (17%), Norway (2.2%) , U.K. (3.6%), maybe Russia (2%), and maybe Mexico (13%). Bottom line - we've got a lot of work to do!

open up alaska!

//ducks