Originally Posted By: Solarent
You are right about PEA manufacturing, Afton, Lubrizol and the like take the PEA and add solvents and lubricity agents to their finished products (which are what would appear in the EPA list).
As far as what goes into your pump gas, it would be hard to tell. Chevron did lead out using PEA under the techron brand, but there is so much fuel trading between companies that it almost becomes moot. Also fuel is transported in pipelines without any additives so it can use the same lines as other similar products. The additives (if any) are typically added at terminals by the marketer (Shell, Mobil etc.) not everyone makes their own fuel additive package because frankly it's not worth the time or energy if you can buy it cheap from Lubrizol, Afton or Oronite.
I also think that nitrogen enriched thing was pretty funny. Up here they've actually changed it to say VPower, probably because the nitrogen enriched thing was a little misleading IMO.
I remember the VPower name. Not sure why it was dropped in favor of some odd sounding stuff. Years ago, Mobil used to just market "Mobil Detergent Gasoline", but that might have been at a time when quite a bit of gasoline might not have contained detergents.
I live fairly close to a major refinery - several actually. A neighbor works for the county in hazardous materials and says that he gets a bunch of paperwork whenever there's a refinery accident. He might also be the guy reporters talk to. However, I've been near one of the terminals near the Chevron Richmond refinery where I've seen everything from tankers marked with fuel transport companies to tankers clearly marked with the names of Chevron's competitors. I understand that the major players have their own additive tanks and there might also be several "generic" tanks. As far as I know, the way Costco is rolling out its additive package with on-site underground mixing is unique.
I've also lived temporarily in other areas far far away from any refinery. I always wondered how fuel could be so cheap with all the transportation costs, but then I was told that it's typically transported by pipeline to various terminals, then trucked to the gas stations.
I posted this in another thread, where a major fuel marketer says they can't control the additive content in their fuel because they don't make it. Now I was under the impression that at least one convenience store brand is Top Tier licensed. I'd think they would either have their own additive tanks at the terminals or they've made an arrangement with one of the big names.
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/may/22/pilot-cant-control-detergent-levels/
