Never saw a posting like this on a fuel pump before- Stop Sale Notice

GON

GON

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Turning in a rental car at the Charleston, SC airport last week, stopped at a Circle K for fuel and saw this posting on every pump. Surprised whatever the issue was- a month later is was not resolved.

THIS PRODUCT (MID GRADE AND PREMIUM) HAS BEEN INSPECTED BY THE SC DEPT OF AGRICULTURE AND ITS SALE IS FORBIDDEN.

BTW- I avoid Circle K stations in general, this was the only station near the airport.

PXL_20210723_122127467.jpg
 
I'm going of a tangent here, maybe the Premium is kept in a separate tank than the regular gas and since this is the case the tank could be contaminated hence both the prem and mid grade valves were shut off (mid grade being a blend of gasoline from prem and reg tanks). That's all i can think of.
 
A lot of areas are now checking octane. They only used to check the accuracy of the pumps, but some Dept. Of AG inspectors were given other test equipment. So, there could be several reasons for this, such as:
Pump not delivering the correct amount of fuel (throwing short)
Product in tank does not meet octane spec due to blending issue
Low ethanol content

Been a long time since I've seen a pump locked out. Somebody is finally doing their job.
Most likely scenario here is the Premium is under on the octane. This is usually a result of the tanker driver not being able to fit the amount of 87 on the truck into the 87 tank, so they dump it into the premium tank.
Or just a plain old mis drop. Putting the wrong compartment on the truck, into the wrong (premium) tank.
 
Looks like a pretty major issue if the stop sale was issued a month prior. I'm going to guess this is a storage issue, otherwise why not flush the tanks of the incorrect blend/contamination. This red flag must be killing their 87 octane sales on fear alone; if I was the store owner, I'd want this dealt with ASAP
 
Last time I had a rental car in Charleston, I used this Sam's Club for refueling before going to the airport. As I recall it was not very far away:
Sam's Club: 4900 Centre Pointe Dr, North Charleston, SC 29418
 
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JohnnyG said:
Low ethanol content
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Don't think low ethanol content would be a problem. The notice says that ethanol in Regular is 10% or less. And since 0 is less than 10, 0% ethanol would be fine.

Mid grade is a blend of regular and premium, and since both mid grade and premium have been "stopped", logically the problem has to be in the premium tank.
 
Mid grade is a blend of regular and premium, and since both mid grade and premium have been "stopped", logically the problem has to be in the premium tank.
Click to expand...
Very true, and unless it's been "damaged" by diesel, like Bullwinkle said, it will most likely just be downgraded to 87 by pumping it over into that tank.
Worst case scenario is that it goes back to the terminal and is put back into the 87 or 91 oct. tanks. Highly unlikely it will go to transmix for return to the refinery, but if it is diesel contamination, that could happen too.
In the end, the product won't go to waste, it will still end up being sold somewhere after being blended off.
 
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JohnnyG said:
Very true, and unless it's been "damaged" by diesel, like Bullwinkle said, it will most likely just be downgraded to 87 by pumping it over into that tank.
Worst case scenario is that it goes back to the terminal and is put back into the 87 or 91 oct. tanks. Highly unlikely it will go to transmix for return to the refinery, but if it is diesel contamination, that could happen too.
In the end, the product won't go to waste, it will still end up being sold somewhere after being blended off.
Click to expand...

Doesn’t make sense that just that tank would remain out of service for a month. It would normally be pumped out quickly. Wonder if maybe it’s a damaged tank that they can’t get repaired.

Any chance that it’s empty and just waiting for repairs?
 
GON said:
Turning in a rental car at the Charleston, SC airport last week, stopped at a Circle K for fuel and saw this posting on every pump. Surprised whatever the issue was- a month later is was not resolved.

THIS PRODUCT (MID GRADE AND PREMIUM) HAS BEEN INSPECTED BY THE SC DEPT OF AGRICULTURE AND ITS SALE IS FORBIDDEN.

BTW- I avoid Circle K stations in general, this was the only station near the airport.

View attachment 65096
Click to expand...
Glad I saw this post. The Shell station I normally use has signs on all their pumps “No Premium or Mid Mid Grade”. Does not say why. Employees also don’t know why.
I don’t doubt that lower octane is the reason. Now if I want premium, i go to the Chevron station across the street.
 
ctrcbob said:
Glad I saw this post. The Shell station I normally use has signs on all their pumps “No Premium or Mid Mid Grade”. Does not say why. Employees also don’t know why.
I don’t doubt that lower octane is the reason. Now if I want premium, i go to the Chevron station across the street.
Click to expand...

The only time I’ve seen something like that was a specially station that had 100 octane unleaded race gas. Once they had a sign saying “out of race gas” and all their exotic stuff (94/96/98/101) was marked as out. 91 was never at the same pumps.


ls.jpg
 
Doesn’t make sense that just that tank would remain out of service for a month. It would normally be pumped out quickly. Wonder if maybe it’s a damaged tank that they can’t get repaired.
Click to expand...
Very possible. I know a product switch and some repairs can be done in a matter of days.

I've also seen fiberglass tanks that were installed with a rock underneath that later punched a hole into the bottom. It was repairable, but it takes a lot longer. Empty, get a crew, gas free it, uncover the manway, crawl down in and fix the leak with fiberglass matting and gel.
You might say it takes some really skilled workers.
 
On top of all this, I just remembered that a Shell station near me was out of 94 a couple weeks ago. Maybe were just talking about a supply shortage.
 
2 scenarios that are likely here...and both involve the delivery driver and likely just a random inspection by the state.

Possibly diesel was dropped into the premium and the state test deemed it cross contaminated.

OR...the carrier brought too much regular. A sloppy/lazy drver didn't check the inventory on hand to see if the quantity they brought would fit. When they attempted to offload it into the regular tank, they filled the tank up to max capacity and it stopped flowing in the hose with more left on the trailer.

Instead of calling dispatch, the driver had the bright idea of just letting whatever regular was left in that compartment dump into the premium to attempt to hide the mistake. A random audit/product test from the state would find the Premium's octane is out of spec, which would also cause them to stop mid-grade as well (as previously stated).

There are a couple of other scenarios that are more involved that have to do with how the product was billed (taxed to wrong state) or possibly a billing audit found they had recieved unbranded product at a branded store or vise-versa. Could be lots of causes for the state to halt sales on a product.
 
I’m more the suspicious type. That it happened at one of those stations people use to fuel up rental cars being returned to the airport, makes me think it’s probably more like what SatinSilver speculates.
 
It just may have been a citing for excessive Ethanol content. Some years back, when the Feds were paying a extra sweetheart bonus to distributors for every gallon of Ethanol they blended in fuel, there were many reports of cheats. Fla. had an Ethanol blend law. Anecdotally, some stations were found to be selling fuel with as much as 40% Ethanol content. Fla. reportedly revoked the mandatory Ethanol law due to that abuse.
 
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