The past 18 months have been brutal to the ethanol industry. The Environmental Protection Agency gutted the Renewable Fuel Standard by issuing retroactive Small Refinery Exemptions (SREs), reducing refiners' renewable fuel requirements by 4 billion gallons and forcing ethanol producers to sell gallons at “clearance sale” prices. Had it not been for record-setting exports and forward-looking retailers…

Based on input from retailers who stopped to see us at trade shows, emails and phone calls we received from marketers, and conversations we had with station owners we work with, ACE recently updated the flexfuelforward.com website to include more marketer “testimonials”…

During the week and a half following President Trump’s Council Bluffs, Iowa, announcement saying EPA had updated Reid vapor pressure (RVP) regulations to allow E15 (15 percent ethanol and 85 percent gasoline) to be sold under the same rules as the 10 percent ethanol blend used in over 90 percent of cars on the road today, I heard from a handful of pump and equipment suppliers, each of whom had heard…

Last October, after President Donald Trump told attendees at an Iowa rally that he was ordering the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to update Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) rules that restricted the sale of E15 fuel (15 percent ethanol, 85 percent gasoline) during summer months, many fuel marketers assumed the change was a “done deal.” It wasn’t. But following the announcement, EPA went to work…

Ah, the summer driving season…

Our minds drift back to a time when we (barely) helped our parents load up the Vista Cruiser, (including all the stuff tied to the roof rack), slid a cooler filled with snacks and ice-cold sodas in the “way back” and Dad ordered everyone to go to the bathroom before they got in the car. Everyone said they already went, but none of us did, and we loaded in the…

If you’re a petroleum marketer who has decided E15 is a bad fuel that costs too much to add to a station’s fuel slate, and consumers don’t want to buy it anyway (although you’d probably say “anyways,”), you’re welcome to seek me out at a trade show and tell me how much you hate ethanol, why it’s so bad, and how badly you don’t want to sell it. I’m not sure what kind of response retailers are looking…

Retailer interest in E15 has increased in the past few months, based in part on the belief that last fall, at an event in Council Bluffs, Iowa, President Trump “signed something” making it legal to sell E15 year-round. That’s not quite what happened, but the President said it would be done before the summer Reid vapor pressure (RVP) season begins on June 1, and the process is underway so we’re hopeful…

A recent article about unleaded E15 in a Wisconsin newspaper attempted to explain what’s different about the “new” 88 unleaded gasoline being sold in a growing number of locations in the state. Whether it was the fault of the reporter or his source from the American Automobile Association (AAA), the article succeeded primarily as an example of “experts” who are often wrong but seldom in doubt, and…

If you own or operate a convenience store or gas station, you’ve probably heard something about E15 over the last several years, and most of it probably wasn’t very good. Maybe even frightening. Hundreds of thousands in installation and equipment costs to sell a fuel nobody wants, nobody can legally use, and oh, dear Lord, the LIABILITY!  (Which kind of flies in the face of all the other things…

Marketing is fun.

At least the stuff most people think of when they hear the word “marketing,” is fun. Naming your product, creating a brand and logos, coming up with catchy slogans, cool ads, maybe a jingle, planning and executing advertising and social media campaigns – all that activity is fun. And when you’re done doing it, you get shiny stuff you can touch and hold in your hands that…