National Petroleum News (NPN) has been the independent voice of the petroleum industry since 1909 as the opposition to Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. So, motor fuels marketing and retail is not just a sideline for us, it’s our core competency.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/49532
MARKETING & SUPPLY BY DEBRARESCHKE SCHUG THE DEF ROLL OUT RAMPS UP Where the diesel exhaust fluid market is at, where it's going and how compa- nies are handling it include class 1 to class 8 heavy duty vehicles. The leading technology to meet this mandate is to inject O diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) into the exhaust of vehicles using Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) technology. DEF is a non-toxic, high quality, urea solution. When sprayed into the exhaust, it is then hydrolyzed before the catalytic con- verter breaks down NOx into nitrogen and water. The consumption of DEF is approximately 3 percent of the diesel fuel consumption, for example, for every 100 gal- lons of diesel consumed, 3 gallons of DEF would be needed. How to provide DEF continues to pose a challenge for retail- ers, especially those that are off-highway, although some major chains are ramping up their offerings. Pilot Flying J announced this fall that the company is offering DEF at the pump at more than 1,100 fueling lanes at 175 nationwide locations, up from 600 fueling lanes at 135 locations previously. The company plans on making DEF available at 1,800 fuel lanes at 300 Pilot Flying J locations by May 1, 2012. Love's Travel Stops says it will be offering bulk DEF at all chain locations within the next year and a half. Travel Centers of America expects to install nearly 65 on-island DEF dispensers at locations across the country in the coming months. Installations will utilize new dispenser and POS sys- tems that will make purchasing DEF quicker, more efficient and customer friendly. Currently, all TA and Petro branded locations currently offer 2.5 gallon containers of DEF. Yara, the world's largest DEF producer, launched the first ever DEF mobile locator application for Android mobile devices this past October. The company had previously introduced the Air1 DEF Mobile Locator app for the iPhone; now the Android version will use GPS technology to find the retail outlets closest to the driver's location to make finding DEF easier. Along with the reduction in NOx emissions, SCR technol- ogy also has the added benefit of improving fuel efficiency. 14 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011 N JAN. 1, 2010, THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION Agency's Clean Air Act mandated that all on-road diesel vehicles manufactured must reduce harmful nitrogen oxide (NOx) emis- sions. These stricter emissions standards Some existing fleets with 2010 heavy duty trucks have report- ed fuel savings of around 5 percent compared to similar 2007 models. At a recent Diesel Emissions Conference put on by Integer Research, PepsiCo's fuel optimization manager, James Thomas, said the fuel efficiency gains of PepsiCo's SCR equipped trucks led to savings as high as 20 percent. Kim Doran, the chief executive officer of Quixote Group Research, estimates the annual need for DEF to operate SCR-equipped trucks will be roughly 101.6 million gallons per year. Yara estimates the market for DEF in 2012 will go up to 130 million gallons. "The DEF market is certainly on the uptick," said Chad Dombroski, director Air1 of Yara. "The truck sales are dic- tating that increase." Air1 is the name brand Yara developed to ensure a secure supply of high-quality DEF. The company has formed a partnership with the largest U.S. distributor, Mansfield, to guarantee the DEF supply in North America. "We're expecting a 30 fold increase by 2015," said Dombroski. "We've seen in the last three months a huge rush for the move to bulk." "The diesel exhaust fluid market is estimated to reach 1 billion gallons a year by 2020," said Dave Michael, Mansfield's general manager of DEF. "While the past two years have been filled with marketers establishing their sup- ply chain and making small packaged deliveries to their customer base, 2012 will be heavily focused on bulk, both in retail and wholesale environments. " In the recent past, the packaging that has been sold to retail outlets has been in small totes. "Initially retailers raced to place inventory of 2.5 gal- lon jugs of DEF at high traffic locations to ensure product availability," said Michael. "These days large truck stops and retail facilities are now racing to install bulk tanks and access to DEF at the pumps on multiple islands to ensure convenience." "Now we're moving to the bulk model," said Dombroski, with 2,000 gallon tanks and at the busier truck stops, 8- 12,000 gallon tanks. Supplying by full truck loads makes the best eco- nomic sense for these retailers. Smaller outlets, such as NPN Magazine n www.npnweb.com