Originally Posted by Thunderstruck

Guys you are not necessarily getting gasoline from the refinery that brands the gasoline at the station. The nasty little known fact is that depending on where you live, gasoline distributors buy gas from a pipeline and as long as it meets the specs it goes to the station. Otherwise an Exxon station and a Shell station across the street from each other could not compete with each other depending on who had the closest refinery. Specs include RVP, octane, corrosion rates etc.

Now, what is done at the terminal is to add the specific brand's additives i.e. Techron for Chevron, etc. but that is for detergents/antioxidants not octane. Sometimes refiners trade/buy or use their own out of spec gasoline to blend octane or whatever down because they don't want to "give away" octane i.e. they want to hit the 87 and not one tenth above 87. But, I really suspect that some out of spec gas gets to the market. So I would buy where YOU get the best results but that may not be consistent from area to area.

To reiterate, I have a Conoco and Citgo refinery in town so those branded stations get that gas. But the gasoline distribution system could not get gasoline cheaply to market if every drop of Citgo gas made in LA was delivered to Atlanta CITGO stations where there are no refineries. Or a better example is that the Shell station in town sells gas for the same price or cheaper than CITGO and Conoco. The nearest Shell refinery is hours away. The trucks get the 87 onboard the additive is added and away they go. This sounds bad but we would not even have $2.00/gal gas if it weren't for this type of distribution system.