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Western States Oil Company in San Jose will use an Energy Commission grant to help it dispense up to 5.25 million gallons of locally produced biodiesel into the Bay area market each year.

Biofuels can help reduce our petroleum dependence and cut air pollution, but the lack of terminal locations, bulk storage and blending facilities prevents their wider use. At a site immediately adjacent to the Kinder Morgan Pipeline Terminal in San Jose, Western States Oil Company plans to convert an existing retail tank for premium gasoline into one that can dispense wholesale biodiesel.

The existing, above-ground, 8,000-gallon tank will be taken out of retail service and fitted with a high-speed pump and a dispenser designed for wholesale sales. The simple conversion will allow delivery trucks leaving the pipeline terminal to easily access the biofuel. The wholesale tank will hold 99 percent biodiesel (B99), which will be mixed in the truck or trailer truck to make blends of 5 percent, 20 percent and up to 99 percent biodiesel.

This Kinder Morgan pipeline terminal serves the southern part of the San Francisco Bay area, making Western State Oil Company’s new biofuel terminal strategically located to service such areas as San Jose, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Fremont and Hayward.

Grant Amount

$69,223

Match Funding

A minimum of $217,380 from project participants.

Project Participants

Western States Oil has been a family run business since 1956. It has been delivering petroleum products for over 40 years throughout the 17 Western states and parts of Asia.

Western States Oil will hire a subcontractor to retrofit the tank to give it full biodiesel storage and blending capacity.

Project Benefits

The project will help to lower the price of biodiesel by reducing the cost of distribution and the time it takes to deliver the biofuel by truck. The biodiesel provided by this site will reduce diesel exhaust emissions, especially from older less emission controlled vehicles. Local air quality will be improved due to biodiesel’s estimated criteria pollution reductions. Encouraging biodiesel use has other strong air quality benefits: biodiesel made from soybeans reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent when compared to regular diesel. If made from waste grease, biodiesel reduces emissions by as much as 88 percent. By displacing petroleum-based diesel, the 5.25 million gallons of biodiesel will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 32,000 tons of CO2 each year.

This project will help secure the employment of one fuel terminal contractor, and California biofuel plants that will benefit from this additional biodiesel demand. This site modification project will support six temporary construction related jobs.

Grant Agreement Number: ARV-10-019