Originally Posted by DakotaTravler

Nope, not necessarily. Just like crude oil. Example, the Alaskan pipeline is use by several oil producers. Let's say they add 10,000 gallons to the pipeline, they can then take out 10,000 on the other end why the physical oil takes 18 or so days to travel it. And the same happens with refinery products. While it is usually the most economical to use ones oil at the corporate stations, it just does not happen that way. Oil prices fluctuate and so does storage. So even the corporate gas stations end up with a product that could have been refined anywhere because the price could have been cheaper than what they produced that day - they saw a sale on stored gasoline and went for it. Now go back 30 years or more and the distribution was not mixed as much but also then gasoline was of lesser quality and there was a lot of poorly refined garbage out there. But today all gasoline is well refined and part of that is because of the buying and selling on the market but really it is just advances in tech and the demands of modern engines. And like I said, it it well known that where I live all the gasoline is sold from one source, we have a depot. And the BP, Shell, Citco, Amoco, Kwik Trip all get the gasoline from the same depot. You can drive right to it and see all the mixed brand named trucks lined up to be filled.