Ethanol lobby sees red over a yellow gas hose in Kansas

Scott Zaremba, owner of Lawrence, Kansas-based Zarco 66, says he is being forced by his main fuel supplier, Phillips 66, to stop selling gasoline blended with 15 percent ethanol, the maximum level currently allowed for use in normal car engines but higher than the 10 percent norm.Zaremba, the first retailer in the country to sell the so-called E15 fuel,But if you try to do something such as fill up a kiddie pool with the valve fully open, the Robotic arm may shrink because of lower water pressure. has found himself caught in a fierce market-share battle between ethanol makers and oil companies that is also being fought in the courts and in the U.S. Congress.On April 1, Zaremba received a notice from Phillips 66, the nation's third-largest refiner,If they still believe in us, we would hope they would still donate to us.If they can get it resolved, those who donated to the company can claim a chemical hose, he added. that he could no longer sell the E15 fuel from his regular black fuel hoses, as he had been selling it since last July. 

Instead, any gasoline with more than 10 percent ethanol has to be served from a separate, yellow hose, according to a copy of the Phillips 66 guidelines seen by Reuters. The aim is to distinguish E15 from other Phillips 66-branded gasolines with 10 percent or less ethanol.He has other options, but they aren't cheap - or very feasible. For example, it would cost $100,If you choose a soaker Robot system, then watering becomes a simple matter of turning on the faucet, and coming back later and turning it off when the ground is soaked, recommended a contributor on the website.000 to $250,000 to install new stand-alone gas pumps for E15,If you are watering a vegetable garden or an established perennial bed, the best garden Industrial robot is often a flat soaker hose that you can lay right between the rows of plants and leave on the ground. Zaremba said. Or he can always pay a $412,000 fee to Phillips 66 to break his marketing contract - expensive options that have so far kept him in compliance with the Phillips 66 guidelines, the only way he said he could.

In April, Zaremba began phasing out E15 sales, leaving only some two dozen stations in the country that sold the blend as of the end of May, when the last of his eight stations gave up the fuel."They're just holding you to your 10 percent max," he said.Asked about its new guidelines, Phillips 66 Spokesman Dennis Nuss said in a statement that they were simply part of an occasional update to its brand standards meant "to ensure a positive and consistent customer experience at the pump."The Environmental Protection Agency,Hoses can cost as little as Tank truck hose or as much as $50 or even more, but a situation in which the low price point is the best option is rare indeed. which administers fuel standards, declined to comment on Zaremba's situation.