ACE’s New E15, Flex Fuel Retailer Roadmap

by Ron Lamberty (American Coalition for Ethanol/Ethanol Producer Magazine) With high-profile convenience store chains announcing the addition of E15 and flex fuels to their traditional fuel slates, other chains and individual station owners increasingly are looking for information to explain why the big guys are making the move. Until now, the answer they’ve been given usually has been a description of a program that helps pay for new fuel dispensing equipment.

Ultimately, the question is, “How would this help me make more money?” That’s the question most petroleum marketers eventually ask about E15 and flex fuels. They have many other questions about equipment, permission, customers and demand. But the bottom line is, always, the bottom line.

The American Coalition for Ethanol’s “E15 and Flex Fuel Retailer Roadmap” was created to address those marketer questions. It’s called a roadmap because, unlike a GPS with turn-by-turn instructions, this guide is similar to the maps service stations used to provide for customers. Those roadmaps showed main highways and county roads in each state, with more detailed inset maps of larger cities. After choosing a destination, people would explore different routes to get there. Every retail station owner’s journey is different, and the roadmap is a reference to help identify routes they can take to E15 and flex fuels, if they decide to go there.

It also provides vehicle warranty info and dispels myths about equipment requirements and liability risks. It also goes through important components of the math of E15 and flex fuels, such as blending economics, octane, increased customer counts and inside sales, and renewable identification number (RIN) credit values.

The back section of the roadmap covers the how-to of adding E15 and flex fuels. Again, not in step-by-step fashion—it’s a general look at E15 and flex-fuel requirements, with instructions on where to find more detailed information. We show how blender dispensers work, cover U.S. EPA and Federal Trade Commission rules on E15 and flex-fuel equipment compatibility, pump labeling, and what it takes to sell legal E15.

Finally, the meat of the roadmap is the middle section, with state-by-state vehicle and driver statistics, rules and regulations, financial incentives for retailers and a statistical profile of E15 and flex-fuel availability and opportunity in each state. READ MORE