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Motorists Sue Over 'Hot' Fuel
i_like_spam writes "Motorists in 13 states have filed lawsuits against big oil companies and gas retailers alleging unfair pricing practices related to fuel-pumping temperatures. From an industry standard developed in the 1920's, the price for a gallon of gasoline is based on the density of the fuel at a temperature of 60 degress F. A gallon of gas at higher temperatures is less dense, and therefore contains less energy. The lawsuits claim additional costs of 3 to 9 cents per gallon without temperature adjustments. The fuel industry claims that the costs of installing temerature-adjustment sensors on every pump would be prohibitively high. These sensors are already installed in Canada, however, where the colder temperatures favor consumers."
A couple of interesting tidbits from the testimony: In some states, compensating for the temperature of refined petroleum products being sold has taken place at the wholesale level -- but not at the retail gas pump (diesel included) or for deliveries of home heating fuel. Some states prohibit temperature compensation at retail and some states prohibit temperature compensation anywhere in the petroleum distribution chain. Most states require temperature compensation for certain products, such as for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) sales, or propane for home heating, but not necessarily for other products. A review of the application of temperature compensation to petroleum volume data showing average fuel storage tank temperatures in the U.S. and possible effect on petroleum measurement. The data on storage tank temperatures, collected by a manufacturer of tank monitoring equipment, over a two year period indicated that the average temperature of product in below ground tanks across the U.S. was 64.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
Because not only would they have to pay for the cost of the installation, but then they'd lose money due to the metering changes based on temperature. Then again, it's not like THEY pay for it. We do.
Business math 101: Their accountants looked at the money they'd lose after installing the sensors and prohibited the engineers from doing it. Ergo, the sensors are prohibitively expensive.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Shouldn't competition keep the prices low?
I bet the 3 to 9 cents is coming off the price and not out of the pocket. The only place where it really matters is when the temperature swing is large and people fueling during rush hour are left paying more than those at night, of course if the consumers were educated about that it would free up rush hour slots at the station and consumers would still win.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Look on the bright side - the fact that the US companies do this sort thing to a greater extent than in other countries is evidence that they operate in more competitive and less regulated environment where a few cents is noticed. And while you may pay a few extra cents for you petrol, you probably pay less for other things because of this.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Sure there's a small amount of gas (probably less than half a gallon) above ground in the pump that will warm and cool relatively quickly but since it is only half a gallon who really cares?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
This site give the coefficient of thermal expaansion for gasoline: http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~vawter/PhysicsNet/Topics/Th ermal/ThermExpan.html. For a
20 C increase in temperature I get about a 2% increase in volume or a 6 cent difference for $3/gal gas. So the article seems about right. s -selling-solar.html
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Just make the standard at 100F instead of 60F, then temperature sensors will be all the rage, as they apparently are in canada.
I have always thought that I was getting ripped off by the person before me that used regular gas, when I pumped premium. Are there several hoses in that pipe, or do I get a hose length of 10 cent cheaper gas in my car everytime that I fill up? If the latter is true... someone start up a class action lawsuit... I have a job that keeps me too busy.
robots obey what the children say - TMBG
I grew up around big oil. Wells, refineries, etc. and I've heard this premise more than once. On the surface, it makes sense but it doesn't hold up in practice. There are really two problems with this theory:
1. (the most important) gasoline tanks are buried 10+ feet under ground. They don't experience the same temperature fluctuations that the surface does. The temperature of the tank can easily be 15-20 degree below ambient air temperature or more. Also, it doesn't fluctuate as much.
2. In the vast majority of the country, the *average* weather nullifies this. Even in Texas, where I grew up, a lot of the state averaged 40-50 for a few months out of the year. In New York, where I am now... the *average* daily temperature breaks 60 for a few months out of the year. Average is important. If it's only above 60, even 70, for a few hours out of the day that will have *no* effect on the tank which is sitting comfortably at 50 or so. So yes... a few months out of the year you're paying more for gas. But a few months out of the year your also paying *less* for gas and most of the time you're breaking even.
I can see this being a valid argument in AZ, Southern NV, AZ... places that are at 100+ right now. But everywhere else in the country it's just someone else trying to get something for nothing.
You also have to bear in mind that this is going to hurt the station owners, not the petroleum companies. In some cases the petroleum companies own your local gas station (usually only in high profit locations) but most of them are licensed by franchises (still private individuals) or independent owner/operators and they will end up eating the cost of the equipment. Not "big oil".
I'm not a shill and I actually don't care for big oil at all... but this is just a stupid lawsuit. Sue them for not pursuing alternative energy. Sue them for not upgrading to more efficient and clean refineries. Sue them for not managing their waste products.
This is just a petty waste of time and doomed to failure.
Yeah, it's too expensive because it would cost the oil companies a lot of money.
What they did there is pretty clever, eh?
The fuel industry claims that the costs of installing temperature-adjustment sensors on every pump would be prohibitively high. These sensors are already installed in Canada, however, where the colder temperatures favor consumers.
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IE is an integral part of Windows! (wait.. it's not yet... wait.. wait.. wait.. aaahh! now it is. congrats!)
We can offer better price and services as a single huge telecom monopoly, don't split us up! (we'll kinda merge later anyway)
Piracy causes tremendous losses to our industry! (we know this, since whatever our profits, we think they should've been 4 times that!)
Most states and even some cities have a 'department of weights and measures' that have a pretty good legal authority to conduct all sorts of testing in regards to the measurement of things sold. I looked up the local ordinances on mine, and they had some fairly nasty teeth to them.
These are exactly the people who you want to get involved to investigate this kind of thing.
Great, so as a motorist, if I win as a member of this class action lawsuit, I'll maybe get a coupon for $5 of gas, while the lawyers will get tens of millions. I can't wait.
I'm I the only American on the planet rooting for higher gas prices in the US? Higher gas equals less SUVs and trucks which equals less congestion. I live in England now, and $7.50 gallon gas is the norm. Get over yourselves already America.
... And I say with with vehement disgust in lieu of stronger words. I like stronger words, but those to whom they'd refer have their heads someplace where they couldn't hear them clearly, so I'll save them.
) . The expansion of the small portion of gas above the riser will be negative for more people than not, more of the time than not. It'll be a contraction.
When I was crawling in and out of underground fuel tanks in a space suit (not really, but we called it that; the air supply was via a hose, not an air tank) I picked up more than a couple pertinent details. And after reading this article I went and looked up a couple more.
The underground temperature at the depth most tanks must reside is between 54 and 58 F depending on location (and varying 1 to 2 F over a year), not 64.7. That figured was arrived at by a company that sells the same kind of equipment this article talks about. They have a vested interest in the data. Not stated is when the measurement is taken -- just after a 5,000 gal. tanker dumps its load into a 20,000 gal tank?
Tanks need to be more than just under the surface. They need to have enough ground covering them so they don't float up out of the ground through bouyancy. Many are tied down by steel straps to a concrete cradle for this reason, but the depth underground is a fail-safe and still adhered to. They also have to be well underground anywhere a vehicle has to drive over them, or a concrete apron will cover them, so the weight above will be spread out and not collapse the tank. Thus, they're almost invariably below the level where variations will be more than a degree or two.
The average annual temperature temperature where I am, Dallas-Fort Worth, is 64.5 F. The expansion of gasoline from 60 to 64.5 is ~0.3% (0.00069 per degree F; diesel is less, 0.00050 per). The amount of gas above the ground in a piping and pump system is the only part of a fill up that'll be affected by air temperature, and then only if it sits long enough to equalize. The volume involved is from 0.5 to 1.5 gallons depending on distance from riser and style of pump+hose. The rest of what's pumped will come right from underground and will be at or less than 60 F.
If this passes, the average US driver will lose the benefit they're already getting due to the average temperature being less than 60 F. The average temperature from 1900 to 2000 is less than 60 over almost all the US (according to plots from data at NOAA's Earth Systems Research Lab http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/USclimate/USclimdivs.html
They'll also pay even more because they'll foot the bill for these devices and their installation; the big oil producers will just plow these costs into the price, and it'll never be noticed, because they can raise the price 10 times that amount, then drop it 9 of that 10, and people will think the price is so close to what it started at that they won't think about it twice.
I had more than a passing familiarity with the issue. Besides going into tanks to inspect them, I also did the annual volumetric testing of gas pumps. I had to apply the correction factor. Where I was, the upper peninsula of Michigan, the average air temperature was very much less than 60. It was 32 F when I moved there in 1976. However, we applied the correction, or rather tried to, based on measuring the temperature of the fuel in the testing can. There was a thermometer built into the glass tube on the side of the can's neck where we also measured the gas level in 0.1 in^3 increments (one part on over 10,000 for the 5 gallon testing can). The temperature was never, as far as I can recall, ever outside the 50s F range.
I'd like to hear from someone up in the Great White as to exactly why they have those temperature sensing devices installed. Whose idea was it, the gas companies' or the peoples'? The article(s; I've looked at several elsewhere) seems to imply the former, but I can't find anything explicit on it.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
The Australian CSIRO studied this problem about 10 years ago, at a cost of around $3million AU.
:)
.. so the commercial dealings between retailers and oil companies already take this into account.
.. but really, there is a lot of good science and logic and economics in the way of that sort of law being introduced here. Anyway - Here is to hoping that they defy logic and introduce such a law in Oz !!
(The paper with the results can be found here
http://www.aip.com.au/issues/temperature.htm
"On the basis of the CSIRO study, Federal and State Consumer Affairs Ministers decided in 1996 that the costs, both capital and ongoing, of temperature correction outweighed any potential benefits.
The extra costs involved in temperature correction would put additional upward pressure on petrol prices.
All the oil companies have in place procedures for addressing claims of fuel losses by service station operators."
However, this was based on adding temp compensation equipment to the price of each fuel bowser, which at the time cost around $2000 US to add to each fuel bowser. (A fuel bowser typically costs around $10000-20000 each), and based on the price of petrol in 1996 terms.
Given the dramatic increases in the cost of fuel, AND the newer (cheaper) technology available in fuel metering -- we might see this whole situation be reviewed in Australia, especially if this lawsuit grows legs and takes off in the US.
As it stands, petrol stations and fuel deliveries in Oz are already heavily regulated to take temperature into account whenever fuel is loaded from a road tanker into a petrol station tank
Disclaimer: My major customer is an Australian linux-loving company that makes fuel bowsers and all the electro-techno stuff that connects to them. IF a new law was introduced here that suddenly demanded Temp Compensation inside each fuel bowser, then we would all become insanely rich overnight, at the expense of the average joe consumer who would pay WAY MORE at the pump
I think that Alaska and Hawaii have regulations in place that require temp compensation metering devices in fuel bowsers though.
Please, we like it that way!!!!!
I can tell you we received the "correction" and it went both ways. We'd break about even spring/fall (very little correction)with summer/winter( making a little more in summer vs. winter) giving us an small overall gain. For the whole year it was on the order of about $.005 US/gallon. Our market would have have adjusted retail prices to compensate had we not received the correction. When one makes 5 cents per gallon 1/2 cent can be the difference between staying in business or not. This is a non issue.
Steve
If he really thinks we're the Devil, then let's send him to Hell.
. . . I can tell you that the c-stores are much more interested in making sure they don't run out of gas. Fuel and cigarettes have become commoditized to such a point that retailers can't grow their business with the stuff anymore and are actually expanding through things like newer, larger store formats and food service programs. I never heard anyone making a big deal out of temperature fluctuations -- the retailers certainly don't gain / lose significant amounts of money because of it.
They are, however, very concerned with having a tank run out -- meaning they can't sell any gas, period. Typically, they already have in-tank sensors for fuel levels, even on moldy old pre-IP equipment. I was onsite at an install last December at a rather large store and this happened for about 15 minutes -- the forecourt controller went down and had to be rebooted -- and *everyone* in the store dropped what they were doing and attended to the problem. The retailers' margins are razor-thin with fuel so they have to make money by selling a ton of it -- and they can't do that when they don't have any or when the dispenser-related equipment is down.
Homeowner here. I regularly load garden supplies into my Mazda Protege or my wife's Pontiac Vibe. I also haul 12' pieces of lumber and furniture in these vehicles. They're a lot more capable than most people think. There have been two occasions in the past two years where I needed to haul something that wouldn't fit in either of them, so I rented a truck. Seems to make a lot more sense than owning a truck just for those couple times where it's actually useful and paying hundreds of dollars more for gas.
My dad owns a 14' sailboat that he tows with a VW Passat Wagon with a 1.8L turbocharged engine.
A long time ago there were these things called station wagons and minivans. They were capable of doing all these things and still managed to get over 25mpg. Really, the only reason you don't see more of them is the stigma of parenthood. They're not seen as "hip." Most people who own SUVs could get by with one of these vehicles because the only real difference is that in most cases they lack four wheel drive. In fact, I remember my wife watching an old Lucille Ball movie where she and Desi were towing a huge Airstream trailer behind their convertible!
They might think they know their needs, but if they sat down and looked at what they used their vehicles for they would probably find they could downsize without losing any functional capability.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.