SAN FRANCISCO -- Exxon Mobil Corp. has put stickers on its gasoline pumps in California and Arizona warning motorists that the amount of energy they get from each gallon will change depending on the temperature, said The San Francisco Chronicle.
Exxon becomes the second oil company to place such stickers on its pumps; Tesoro took the same step in July.
The stickers are part of the national debate over hot fuel. Like other liquids, gasoline expands in warm temperatures. But gas pumps in the United States don't compensate for that [image-nocss] change. As a result, the gallon they dispense in warm weather is less dense and contains less energy than a gallon dispensed in colder temperatures. The difference amounts to pennies per gallon. But over time, it adds up. A study last year by The Kansas City Star, which brought the issue to light, estimated that Californians would save about $450 million per year if the state's gasoline pumps adjusted for temperature.
Proposed federal legislation would force the oil companies to start using temperature-adjusting pumps, an idea the companies fiercely oppose. Both Exxon and Tesoro said that position hasn't changed, their new pump stickers notwithstanding.
It is simply a reminder [to customers] that the dispenser sells motor fuel by volume, Exxon spokesperson Prem Nair told the Chronicle. This is how fuel has traditionally been sold at retail in the continental United States.
Exxon's move may prompt others to follow suit, said the report. But consumer advocates say stickers are no substitute for temperature-adjusting pumps. The only way to fix the hot-fuel problem is not with a sticker that's so small that you need reading glasses to read it, it's by selling fuel fairly, Judy Dugan, research director for the Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights, told the newspaper.
Oil industry representatives argue that higher temperatures in summer and colder temperatures in winter should, in effect, cancel each other out, with consumers paying about as much as they would with temperature-adjusting pumps. The cost of installing the new pumps across the country, they say, isn't justified.
But the average temperature of fuel in gas stations' underground storage tanks (USTs) may be higher than 60 degrees, the report said. One survey cited in a recent congressional hearing on the topic found that the average temperature in tanks nationwide was 64.7 degrees.
In California, a division of the Department of Food & Agriculture is conducting a survey of fuel temperatures throughout the state. The survey has found an average temperature of 79.4 degrees in July for regular gasoline, compared with an average of 63.8 degrees in March, the first month of the survey.
Temperature-adjusting pumps already are used in Canada, where cold temperatures otherwise would cost oil companies money. One maker of such pumps won approval this spring from California regulators to sell its pumps in the state, but ditched those plans after oil and gasoline businesses complained.
Legislation in California proposed by Assemblyman Mike Davis (D) would commission a study of the hot-fuel issue, but would not require any action on it, the report said.
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