Originally Posted By: nthach
Originally Posted By: y_p_w
A few days ago I had some errand to do in Richmond, California and drove by the Chevron Richmond Refinery. Tankers were all over the place. However, it's kind of hard to tell exactly where the fuel came from since they actually have 4 terminals in the same general area. Obviously the location of all of them near a refinery isn't a coincidence. All of them (even the Phillips 66) probably get most of their fuel from that refinery.
This doesn't necessarily correlate to what you might have regionally where you live, but it does indicate that as a practical consideration it makes sense to load fuel close to a refinery. Still - they have customers to serve and may still need to get fuel delivered from further away by rail, ship, or pipe depending on how much fuel they can get from the closest refinery.
You forgot Philips 66 in Rodeo(their tanker rack is down the street from Chevron), Shell in Martinez, Valero in Benicia and Tesoro's Golden Eagle refinery in Avon(unincorporated Contra Costa, just nestled above Concord off Arnold Industrial Way). Kinder Morgan also has a pipeline terminal about 2 miles away from Chevron Richmond and Kenan Advantage(Beneto) has a tanker terminal in Martinez - all refineries in CA feed into the network.
There isn't Wal-Mart gas anywhere with me, I'd use it out of convenience if I was near one. It won't be additized to the same level as a Top Tier gas, but you can always walk inside the main store and get a bottle of Techron or Regane.
I didn't name the 4 terminals in Richmond, but they are all listed in the Google Maps link. I used the satellite view to get a better look at the facilities, like tanks, rail, and docks.
I'm aware of all the Bay Area refineries, but I was concentrating on those in Richmond and the general belief that a tanker that's coming out of there must be getting fuel that was refined at the Chevron Richmond refinery. The fuel could still be coming from anywhere.