Supermarket fuel

I'm lead to believe that all the refineries 'pump' fuel into a shared national distribution network, bit like electric being supplied into the National Grid from a range of producers including us with solar panels. If this is so then that would suggest there could be no real difference between the super markets and the others!

Well shell sold their refineries to the Indians about 5 years ago. Decided that they could more money taking the the stuff out the ground with the oil pricing being so high. 

Iv'e run supermarket Diesel and Unleaded Petrol from supermarket fuel stations for to many years to count, never had a problem on any off my cars. I have 3.

Edit

Posted this to overcome an error message, could not select page two, now ok.....

If supermarket fuel was inferior I think the cat would have been out of the bag long ago. Fuel is all to a standard which is displayed on the pump.

Cue Chemical Jasper,  he knows what's what .....

LOL...Thanks Brian! .

...but its Xmas and I really dont know if I want to get drawn in to the debate again!

The only people who loss out are the mis-guided people wasting their money on "branded" fuel, when it is all the same comodity product!

England
Fawley Refinery (ExxonMobil)
Humber Refinery (Phillips 66)
Lindsey Oil Refinery (Total)
Stanlow Refinery (Essar Oil)
Scotland
Grangemouth Refinery (Petroineos)
Wales
Pembroke Refinery (Valero)

How many of the 'Brands' actually manufacture in the UK? Were does this BP or Shell fuel come from?

At the refinery I work at, we fill all the supermarkets and all the local 'Brands' and it all comes out of the same big staorage tank and is the same product (a blend of different available distillates, made to to meet the minimum specification at the cheapest cost), going in to all the supermarket tankers as it is the BP, Shell, Esso, Jet.

Basic BS EN 590 Diesel is basic BS EN 590 Diesel, and it pretty much always comes from the closest geographical refinery or storage depot (supplied by the closest couple of refineries). 

But I'm sure the AA man down the road knows best!

Merry Xmas! 

#failed - never can just keep me gob shut!   

I think the OP has confused correlation and causation.

Here is a great link (well for a geek like me it is) showing how easy it is to confuse correlation and causation! 

http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

Not only can I not tell the difference between supermarket and branded fuel, I cannot detect any difference between the normal diesel and the premium version sold by some of the branded companies. Certainly no difference in performance or mpg. It seems therefore best to buy whatever is cheapest.

As far as I can tell the only difference in the fuel is aditives. Basically when the fuel is pumped into the tanker additives are added which vary from company to company but I have not noticed any real difference between them. I have used supermarket fuels for many years with no problems.

I do tend to put the odd tank of Esso in though as the local garage does a cheap deal on a Saturday and often undercuts the supermarkets.

If there is a problem with dirt in the fuel it is more likely to be dirt from the petrol station tanks due to failure to clean them out enough or correctly. As Chemical Jasper says all the fuel in any area comes from the local area so it is difficult to see it being from there so the only difference is the petrol station.