California drivers fill up on Amazon oil at gas stations operated by major brands such as Marathon, Chevron and Shell. The highest-consuming brand in 2020 was Marathon (339 million gallons), according to the report, but it still trailed unbranded gasoline (479 million).
Motorists also purchase oil from the Amazon at supermarket fueling stations at places like Costco, Safeway and Walmart. Those companies also use them for their fleets. Last year Costco was the top consumer of Amazon oil (19 million gallons), the report said.
Major airlines operating in California consumed a total of 123 million gallons of jet fuel sourced from the Amazon last year. The top consumer was American Airlines (31 million gallons) followed by United (30.05 million gallons) and Delta (30 million gallons), according to the report.
PepsiCo (4 million gallons) was the top consumer of Amazon diesel among food and beverage delivery companies. Among parcel delivery companies, Amazon (13.3 million gallons) slightly edged out UPS (13.1 million gallons) and FedEx (12 million).
The report urged corporate leaders to call for no new oil expansion in the Amazon and set “aggressive goals for electric vehicle use and other strategies designed to reduce fossil fuel consumption.”
NBC News reached out to all of the companies named in this story. Delta was the only one to comment, saying the company is working to move away from jet fuel to sustainable aviation fuel and hopes to make it 10 percent of the overall fuel supply by 2030.
Ed Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston, said he’s not surprised that such a large amount of oil from the Amazon ends up in California given its proximity.
“It’s probably just transportation cost,” Hirs said. “It’s seven or eight days to California” from Ecuador “as opposed to weeks from the Middle East.”
Hirs said the report underscores a hard reality of the global marketplace for oil: Even if California were to stop consuming the crude from the Amazon, another country would merely take its place.
“I can’t argue with what they’re talking about in terms of the damage and environmental issues,” Hirs said. “Is it a problem? Absolutely. Can California do anything about it? No. For another 50 cents a barrel, that oil would just go someplace else.”
Robertson said she knows it would be unrealistic for California to stop using oil from the Amazon altogether, but she hopes government officials and corporate leaders take steps to reduce their dependence as part of an overall strategy to curtail the use of fossil fuels.
“It’s within the realm of the possible, and it’s part of the necessary,” Robertson said. “It should become something that is central to California’s climate crisis strategy.”
Santiago Cornejo reported from Ecuador. Rich Schapiro and Christine Romo reported from New York.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
