B I OD E A L ER A few customers worried about the compatibility of the
biodiesel with their equipment. "Once they were assured that the transition would be seamless, that there was nothing to be done – they were on board," LeoGrande said. Now Windsor Fuel is planning to add bulk storage exclusively
for biodiesel. "We're in the process right now of trying to add a B100 tank
to our facilities so we can do the blending at different ratios at the rack," LeoGrande reported. "Right now when we blend in the tank, it's five percent, and we can't adjust that up or down." Adding a dedicated biodiesel storage tank will enable Windsor
Fuel to blend at the rack. "We can adjust that ratio from five per- cent all the way up to 20 percent," LeoGrande said. "We're going to give that higher percentage to our customers because we feel it's a better product and they would want that because it's also a cleaner product, and the higher the percentage, the higher the tax credit they get. For B20, they'll get [a tax credit] of twenty cents per gallon. That's one of the driving forces." Windsor Fuel also will be able to offer the higher blend to its
throughput customers, LeoGrande noted. "Different throughput customers might request different
blend levels – B5 or B10," LeoGrande said. "We want be able to supply from five percent all the way to 20 percent."
The new tank for the biodiesel is probably going to be sized
at 30,000 gallons, LeoGrande said. Placement – under or above ground – is still being weighed by the engineers on the project. "If the tank is going to be aboveground, it will need to be
heated and insulated," LeoGrande said. "When the bioproduct is at a full concentration, it tends to get thicker and gel up as the temperature decreases. That's the concern." An advantage of underground storage is that the tempera-
ture would be constant at roughly 55 degrees, and so would not require insulation, LeoGrande said. "We're weighing the pros and cons," he said. "We're hoping
to get this work done during the summer and be ready to go by September or October, for the start of the heating season." Under a mandate by New York state, all heating oil must
be ultra-low sulfur starting July 1. "It's going to have the same sulfur content as ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel for on-road trucks," LeoGrande said. That means a change from roughly 3,000 parts per million (ppm) "all the way down to 15 ppm," he noted. "The new number two oil is going to be very, very low-sulfur
content, and when we blend that with biofuel, we'll actually have a product that will burn cleaner than natural gas," LeoGrande said. l FON
www.fueloilnews.com | FUEL OIL NEWS | JUNE 2012 21
