From the first major purchase of oil storage tanks near the railroad in Beloit and two draft horses used for the transportation of the oil and gasoline, bulk fuel delivery has changed with the times.

            With the implementation of the Rural Fuel Delivery (RFD) by Cenex and Farmway Co-op last March, the future of rural fuel deliveries began a significant modification and improvement from the past to the future.

            According to Chuck Hessenflow, Farmway Co-op’s Energy Division Vice-president, RFD currently delivers fuel to 650 monitored tanks in Farmway’s trade territory.

            “Farmway’s employees have been recognized as the model for a successful implementation of the RFD program by Cenex,” Hessenflow said.

            “The employee’s promotion of and the customer’s rapid acceptance of this program is unmatched compared to any other implementation of RFD,” Hessenflow said. “This is truly very exciting considering there are RFD systems throughout Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado.”

            The RFD program continues to grow rapidly as customers continue to upgrade their fuel tank sizes to take advantage of tank size fueling price discounts with the program.

            “We plan to have an additional 300 monitors in place by the spring of 2008,” Hessenflow explained. “RFD has allowed us to increase our service area.”

            RFD is currently delivering over 65 per cent of Farmway’s bulk fuel through the new program.

            “We are very pleased with this volume,” he said. “As a result of the new compliance issues, we are in the process of converting almost all of our bulk fuel deliveries to RFD.

            As a result of these compliance issues through the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, Farmway will be required to eliminate some of their bulk fuel facilities.

            “With the new Spill Prevention, Containment and Countermeasure (SPCC) program, we will begin the process of decommissioning and taking several of our bulk fuel plants out of service,” Hessenflow explained. “With RFD we can handle these additional deliveries and we will not need several of these bulk fuel facilities.”

            “We will take out the bulk fuel plants at Lincoln, Hunter, Cawker City, Glen Elder, Concordia and Clay Center,” Hessenflow said. “We will keep the plants at Belleville, Tipton, Miltonvale, Leonardville and Beloit. These are strategically located to serve seasonal irrigation needs and have Automated Fueling Sites at their locations.”

            According to Hessenflow, the sites will be cleaned up and tanks will either be salvaged or made available for customers to purchase. The tanks will all be integrity tested to determine their usefulness.

            Tanks range in size from 4,000 to 15,000 gallons and most are in the 8,000 to 10,000 gallon range.

            “Customers with higher volume fueling needs can set these tanks up and take advantage of the fuel tank size discounts through RFD,” he said. “Customers can contact their local petroleum managers for tank details. They are managing the disposal and/or sale of these bulk fuel tanks.”

            Hessenflow realizes there will be a need to maintain limited bulk fuel delivery options for situations such as irrigation or customer emergencies, but the best value for customers is to have the fuel delivered through the RFD system.

            “We are pleased with the pricing aspects of RFD, but another major advantage has been the consumption billing to the producer,” he said. “The customer does not have pay for the fuel until it is used. We knew this was an advantage, but our customers tell us it is an even greater benefit to them than we had anticipated.”

            Not only has the RFD program been a benefit to the Farmway customer, it has also been a great advantage to Farmway Co-op.

            “RFD has benefited Farmway Co-op in that our truck expense has been reduced significantly,” Hessenflow said. “RFD has enabled us to better service and to transition our employees to the RFD system and customer support.

            “In addition, Farmway’s cost of operation has been reduced because we don’t have to own such large amounts of fuel because Farmway also benefits from the consumption billing program,” he said.

            “We are very happy with the Cenex RFD system,” he said. “Cenex has made a concerted effort to support this system, for the benefit of Farmway Co-op and most of all for the benefit to our customers.”