New state bans on methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE), continuing liability exposure from adding MTBE to gasoline, new Federal renewable energy standards, tax credits, and changes to rules governing gasoline additives have influenced suppliers to shift from MTBE-blended reformulated gasoline (RFG) to ethanol-blended petroleum RFG quicker than expected. That has tank owners scrambling to get water out of their tanks and evaluate / retrofit tanks to accept ethanol.

Underground storage tanks (USTs) are subject to accumulations of water and/or sediment over time. When ethanol is introduced into the fuel storage system, excessive water levels in the tank can cause the ethanol in the gasoline/ethanol blend to "phase separate," resulting in a phase of water and ethanol at the bottom of the tank. Unfortunately, there is no way to "fix" the contents of a tank that have undergone phase separation. The tank's contents, including the top fuel and bottom water/alcohol layers, must be removed.

It is imperative, then, that water be eliminated from the system. The maintenance history of all tanks to be used for storage of gasoline/ethanol blends should be reviewed. Any tank with a history of excessive water problems should be examined closely. The source of water entering the tank must be identified and eliminated before the tank is converted to accept gasoline/ethanol blends.

We expect that most oil companies will switch from MTBE-blended fuel to ethanol-blended fuel in April or May. That doesn't leave much time to prepare refueling facilities in the RFG markets for ethanol, and contractor members expect demand to increase steadily as tank owners become aware of the switch-over issues.

Marketers in some conventional fuel areas may also have to prepare their tanks for ethanol if their terminals decide to only inventory the RFG base gasoline and ethanol. The March 13 issue of Oil Express suggests that conventional gasoline might disappear in the Dallas/Ft.Worth, Baltimore, Richmond and Fairfax markets and be replaced with ethanol.

Reprinted from PEI

Core Engineered Solutions provides fuel storage tanks suitable for Alternative fuels storage including Ethanol

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