Exxon Mobil puts stickers on dispensers to explain ‘hot fuel’

Exxon Mobil Corp. has put stickers on its gasoline dispensers in California and Arizona warning motorists that the amount of energy they get from each gallon will change depending on the temperature. Tesoro had already taken a similar action in July.

The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR), a nonprofit, nonpartisan group in California, took the oil company to task over the stickers in a press release issued on Aug. 9. The stickers “are a strategy to fend off ‘hot fuel’ lawsuits and allow the ripoff to continue,” the group said. It argued that neither a current class action lawsuit nor federal legislation to require temperature compensation of retail fuel may force oil refiners to implement temperature compensation.

"ExxonMobil, America's most profitable corporation, owes drivers more than a cheap sticker in tiny print," said Judy Dugan, research director of FTCR and its OilWatchdog.org project. "The company has funds that it uses to help dealers with infrastructure, and which could be used to buy nozzles that adjust fuel volume for higher temperatures."

Newly introduced legislation in the Senate, by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), would require gasoline and diesel to be sold adjusted for temperature.

Fuel expands and contracts depending on temperature. At the longtime industry standard of 60 degrees, the 231-cubic-inch U.S. gallon puts out a certain amount of energy, reported Steve Everly in the Aug. 6 edition of The Kansas City Star. But fuel is often sold at much higher temperatures, causing the fuel to expand and the amount of energy to decline for each gallon dispensed, according to the Star article. A study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that the nationwide, year-round average temperature of retail fuel was 64.7 degrees, the Star reported.

"Consumers and lawmakers are increasingly aware that there is a thumb on the scale when they buy gasoline, even though they have no fairer alternative for purchasing it," said Dugan, of the consumer advocates’ group. "The Senate's hot fuel bill is a warning to oil companies, refiners and distributors of gasoline that they can either make gasoline sales honest themselves or be forced by the courts or government to do it."

Exxon said that it would put stickers on its pumps at stations in California and Arizona, according to news reports and the consumer advocates’ group. A survey of six stations in Los Angeles and Santa Monica found the stickers only at Exxon-owned and franchised stations, not at independently owned but branded Exxon and Mobil stations, according to the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights.

See photos of the sticker on pump at:

http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/ExxonCaveat.pdf
http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/ExxonPump.pdf