Other Gasoline Stations (U.S.) — NAICS 457120

An investor's primer. NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) is the U.S. government's standard code for industries; 457120, "Other Gasoline Stations," is the pump-only slice — gasoline retailers that do not run an attached convenience store.

1. Overview

This is the "pump-only" corner of American fuel retailing: stations that sell gasoline and diesel without the attached convenience store (c-store) that defines the modern corner gas station. In practice the category is a barbell. At one end sit a handful of very large, very high-volume operators — warehouse clubs and big-box retailers such as Costco, Sam's Club, Kroger fuel centers and BJ's, whose fuel islands carry no store. At the other end sits a long, thinning tail of small independents: the fading full-service/repair "service station," rural fuel islands, unmanned card-lock (self-service fleet fueling) sites, and marina fuel docks. [3][6]

The economic model is simple to state: fuel creates traffic, and profit comes from gallons sold, the margin per gallon, whatever non-fuel service the site can add, and the value of the real estate. What makes it hard is that gasoline — the core product — has almost certainly already peaked in the United States [8]. So this is a story about volume, cost discipline, and what you sell alongside the fuel, not about the fuel itself. The winners run huge gallons through cheap real estate and subsidize the pump with something else (membership fees, a grocery basket, repair labor).

Two ways in, neither a clean fit:

• Public markets: there is no pure-play public "other gasoline station" company. Exposure comes indirectly through diversified retailers where pump-only fuel is one segment (Costco, Walmart, Kroger, BJ's), through the wholesale fuel distributors and master limited partnerships (MLPs — pass-through entities that pay out most cash as distributions) that supply the stations (Sunoco LP, Global Partners LP, World Kinect), or through a net-lease real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns the dirt (Getty Realty).
• Private markets: buying and operating stations directly — single sites, regional chains, truck stops, dealer networks — plus the wholesale distribution behind them, station real estate, sale-leasebacks, and charging infrastructure.

2. What it is and how it's structured

The federal definition (NAICS 2022) covers establishments "generally known as gasoline stations (except those with convenience stores) or truck stops" that primarily retail automotive fuels — gasoline, diesel, gasohol, alternative fuels — either alone or combined with repair services, automotive oils and parts, or limited food service. Illustrative examples: gasoline stations without convenience stores, truck stops, and marine (marina) service stations. [3]

What it excludes — and where most of the money is — matters as much as what it includes:

• 457110, Gasoline Stations with Convenience Stores — the c-store-plus-fuel format that sells roughly 80% of the fuel Americans buy [6]. Most of the big listed and private "gas station" names live here, not in 457120.
• 457210, Fuel Dealers — home heating oil, propane and bulk fuel delivered to customers rather than pumped on site.
• 8111, Automotive Repair — a shop that fixes cars but does not primarily sell fuel.
• 445131, Convenience Retailers without Fuel — a food mart with no pumps. [3]

Classification follows each establishment's primary activity, location by location. So a warehouse club's separate fuel island can land in 457120 even though the club itself is a general retailer, while a site that pumps fuel and runs a food mart is booked as 457110. Economically similar businesses therefore scatter across codes.

Ownership is layered. A single station may be owned by one party, leased from a landlord, supplied by a branded fuel company, and run day-to-day by a dealer or commission agent. Fewer than half of U.S. retail stations — roughly 40% — fly a major oil company's brand (Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP and the like); the rest are unbranded or regional-branded [19]. Crucially, the oil majors have almost entirely exited owning and operating stations, shifting to brand licensing plus wholesale supply. The structure now runs through:

• Independent dealers who own or lease their site and buy fuel under a supply contract;
• Lessee-dealers who operate a refiner- or distributor-owned site and pay rent;
• Jobbers — wholesale distributors who buy fuel at the terminal "rack," truck it, and supply networks of branded and unbranded stations;
• Company-operated sites run directly by a large retailer (the club/big-box model). [19]

The federal data give no public-versus-private ownership split; in practice the field mixes national chains, private regional operators, independent dealers, truck-stop companies, wholesalers and pure property owners.

3. How big it is

Federal ground-truth figures for NAICS 457120:

A few things stand out. Revenue is enormous relative to the firm count — about $21 million per firm — because fuel is a high-ticket, pass-through product: most of the sticker price is the fuel itself plus tax, not the retailer's take. Payroll is thin: ~$5.98 billion across ~169,000 workers is roughly $35,000 per employee [1], and many high-volume fuel islands run nearly unattended.

And the industry is unusually concentrated for a trade with ~9,000 firms. The concentration ratios (CRn — the combined revenue share of the largest n firms) show the four biggest firms at 60.6% of receipts, the top eight at 64.4%, the top twenty at 68.1%, and the top fifty at 71.5% [2]. These are revenue shares, not a count of station locations, and not by themselves an antitrust conclusion. The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI — the standard single-number concentration score) is suppressed in the federal data and is not stated here [2].

That top-heavy shape is the tell. In an ordinary fragmented retail trade you would never see four firms at 60% of revenue. The most plausible reading (an interpretation, not a Census label) is that the top of this code is the warehouse-club and big-box fuel operators — Costco, Sam's Club/Walmart, Kroger, BJ's — whose price-leader islands do roughly ten times the gallons of an average site [6], carry no c-store, and so fall squarely into 457120. Costco alone ran 747 fuel stations and booked on the order of $29–30 billion of gasoline sales in fiscal 2025 [10]; Kroger operates about 1,731 fuel centers [11] and BJ's roughly 200 [11]. A handful of these giants can plausibly account for most of the ~$188 billion.

Undercount and classification caveats (be honest here). Federal statistics tell this industry's story imperfectly, for three reasons. First, the biggest sellers of pump-only fuel are giant public retailers whose gasoline is a minor segment — so the industry's real economics never surface in any single "gas station" company. Second, County Business Patterns (CBP) and the Economic Census principally cover employer establishments; owner-only and unmanned sites with no payroll (a real share of the rural/card-lock tail) can be missed [5]. Third, whether a given club or grocery fuel island is booked as a separate 457120 establishment or folded into its parent retailer's record varies, so the establishment count likely understates the number of physical pump-only sites. The federal file also does not report national gallons sold, same-store sales, average fuel margin, capital spending, or environmental liabilities — those must be assembled company by company. Treat the revenue and concentration figures as directionally right and the site count as a floor.

4. The investable universe

There is no public company that is purely an "other gasoline station" operator. Public exposure comes wrapped in something bigger — a diversified retailer, a wholesale distributor, or a landlord. Reported figures below come from each company's latest annual filing; they are representative exposures, not pure plays.

MLP = master limited partnership, a pass-through that pays out most cash as distributions rather than a corporate dividend; the structure can complicate an investor's taxes. REIT = real estate investment trust, which owns income property and passes most earnings through as dividends.

Adjacent c-store operators (NAICS 457110, not this code) are where most listed "gas station" money actually sits. They matter as comparables and consolidators — but they are the store format, not the pump-only one:

• Alimentation Couche-Tard / Circle K (TSX: ATD) — 7,300+ U.S. stores in 48 states, plus global exposure [18].
• Casey's General Stores (Nasdaq: CASY) — 2,904 stores in 20 states, 3.197 billion gallons sold, 38.68 CPG retail fuel margin (FY2025) [12].
• Murphy USA (NYSE: MUSA) — 1,757 stores in 27 states; 30.5 CPG total fuel contribution in 2024 (blending retail, wholesale, supply and renewable-credit results) [13].
• ARKO Corp (Nasdaq: ARKO) — 1,389 retail stores, fuel supplied to 1,922 dealer sites, and 280 cardlock locations across 30+ states (2024) [14].

Major private operators — mostly classified in 457110 because they pair fuel with a c-store, but relevant comparables and roll-up counterparties:

• Love's Travel Stops — family-owned, 670 locations in 42 states [25].
• Pilot (Pilot Flying J) — wholly owned by publicly traded Berkshire Hathaway since 2024; a major travel-center network, not separately listed [25].
• Wawa — privately held, 1,075+ stores, of which 885+ sell fuel [25].
• Sheetz — privately held/family-owned, 700+ stores in six states [25].
• Kwik Trip — family-owned, 900+ stores [25].
• RaceTrac — family-owned, 800+ locations in 14 states (acquired Potbelly in 2025) [25].
• QuikTrip and Buc-ee's — privately held; QuikTrip a large urban c-store chain, Buc-ee's a large-format travel-center brand [25].

Bottom line: if you want the economics of pump-only fuel retail directly, the private market — buying stations or the distribution business behind them — is essentially the only pure route. Public markets offer it only wrapped inside a bigger retailer, a wholesale distributor, or a landlord.

5. How the money works

Fuel retail is measured in cents per gallon (CPG), not percentage margin, and the economics are specific to this trade:

• The spread, not the price. A retailer's gross margin is the gap between the street price and the replacement cost of the next gallon. Industry gross margins have run about 35–40 CPG in recent years [7]. That is thin on a $3–4 pump price because it is meant to be. Fuel revenue can also rise simply because pump prices rise, so an investor should always separate price, gallons, and margin.
• Card fees are the killer cost. Credit-card interchange runs about 2.5% of every swipe, which on fuel works out to roughly 8–10 CPG — the biggest operating cost after the fuel itself. NACS (the National Association of Convenience Stores) pegged card fees at 8.4 CPG in 2023 [7]. After fees and other expenses, net profit is often only around 15 CPG [7] — which is why so many stations post a lower "cash price."
• Volume is everything. Because the per-gallon take is tiny, profit is a function of gallons pumped. Club and big-box sites moving ~10x the gallons of an average station [6] can price 20–34 CPG below the local average [10] and still make money — because they aren't really trying to make money on the fuel. Costco uses cheap gas to sell memberships; Kroger uses it to fill grocery baskets and reward loyalty [11]. The fuel is a traffic magnet.
• "Rockets and feathers." Retail margins move counter to wholesale prices. When wholesale/crude costs fall, street prices drop slowly and margins temporarily fatten; when wholesale spikes, street prices lag upward and margins compress. Retailer profitability can therefore be strongest when prices at the pump are falling.
• The format problem. A pump-only station has no high-margin c-store snacks, coffee or foodservice to cross-subsidize thin fuel margins. So the classic independent non-c-store station is the most exposed — which is exactly why the format is shrinking. The exceptions prove the rule: clubs subsidize with membership and basket; the surviving repair-bay service stations make their money on labor, not fuel; truck stops add parking, showers and fleet services.
• The balance sheet underground. The largest hidden cost is the underground storage tank (UST): leak-detection systems, tank replacement, and — if a tank leaks — remediation liability that can exceed the value of the real estate. For many old sites the land under the pumps is both the main asset and the main liability.

For private buyers, site-level metrics decide the deal: gallons per site, margin per gallon, same-store gallons, non-fuel gross profit, labor, rent, tank age and condition, environmental reserves, and cash flow after recurring maintenance capital. Company-reported margins (e.g., Casey's 38.68 CPG, Murphy's 30.5 CPG) illustrate the economics but are not national averages — both firms operate mainly in the adjacent c-store format, and Murphy's figure folds in wholesale and supply. [12][13]

6. What drives demand

• Vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and total gasoline consumption. U.S. VMT hit an all-time high of ~9.0 billion miles per day in 2024 [8], yet gasoline consumption is falling — averaging about 8.9 million barrels per day in 2025, down ~1% from 2024 and ~4% below the 2019 pre-pandemic level, with EIA (the U.S. Energy Information Administration) forecasting further declines in 2026 and 2027 [8].
• Fuel economy (miles per gallon, MPG). This is why demand falls while driving rises: new vehicles keep getting more efficient, and each efficiency gain is a permanent haircut to gallons sold [8].
• Electric and hybrid vehicles (EVs). The structural threat. Hybrid (HEV), battery-electric (BEV) and plug-in-hybrid (PHEV) vehicles together made up 22% of U.S. light-duty vehicle sales in 2025 [9]. The installed fleet turns over far more slowly than annual sales, so the erosion is gradual — the pace, not the direction, is the open question.
• The economy and commuting. Employment, working-age population and commuting patterns drive fuel demand; slower workforce growth and durable remote/hybrid work are headwinds to VMT growth.
• Diesel and freight. Truck stops and diesel islands ride the freight cycle and industrial activity rather than commuter traffic.
• Location and price. Interstate exits, rural corridors, ports, tourist routes and dense commuter markets carry very different volume and margin profiles; high pump prices trim discretionary driving and push demand toward the cheapest station.

The through-line: peak gasoline is behind the U.S. (2018 was the high-water mark, ~9.3 million b/d) [8], so operators compete for share of a slowly shrinking pie.

7. Regulation

Fuel retail is one of the more heavily regulated small-business trades in America.

• Underground storage tanks (USTs) — the big one. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets federal UST rules (40 CFR Part 280) requiring leak detection, spill/overfill protection, corrosion-resistant tanks, recordkeeping, operator training and proof of financial responsibility, with most day-to-day enforcement delegated to states [20]. Leak cleanup is partly backstopped by the federal Leaking Underground Storage Tank (LUST) Trust Fund, funded by a 0.1-CPG slice of the federal fuel tax [24].
• Clean Air Act (CAA) fuel rules. Gasoline dispensing is subject to vapor-recovery and evaporative-emission controls, and seasonal Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP — a measure of how readily fuel evaporates) limits plus regional "boutique" blends shape what can be sold where and when [22].
• Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) / RINs. The RFS mandates that renewable fuel (ethanol, biodiesel) be blended into the supply; compliance is tracked with Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs). The legal obligation sits on refiners and importers, not the station, but it feeds through into the cost and blend of the fuel a retailer buys [21].
• E15. E15 is gasoline blended with up to 15% ethanol (versus standard E10 at up to 10%). EPA used nationwide summer emergency waivers to keep E15 on sale in 2025 and 2026; availability is policy-sensitive, and older tanks, piping, seals and dispensers may need compatibility work [22].
• Franchise protection — the PMPA. The Petroleum Marketing Practices Act of 1978 (a federal law) restricts how a refiner or distributor may terminate or decline to renew a branded dealer's franchise and imposes notice requirements (generally 90 days) [23]. It is the legal spine of the branded-dealer relationship.
• Taxes collected at the pump. Stations remit federal excise tax of 18.4 CPG on gasoline and 24.4 CPG on diesel — unchanged since 1993 and not indexed to inflation — plus state taxes averaging about 33 CPG and running past 50–60 CPG in California, Pennsylvania and Washington [24]. These are pass-throughs, but the compliance and cash-flow burden is real.
• Card-reader security (EMV). The Europay-Mastercard-Visa (EMV) chip "liability shift" for fuel dispensers (effective 2020–2021) forced expensive pump upgrades; operators who didn't upgrade eat the cost of card fraud at the pump.
• State and local. Weights-and-measures agencies calibrate pumps for accuracy; fire codes (NFPA 30A) and zoning govern siting; and California's Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) and Air Resources Board (CARB) rules add cost in that market — where a planned phase-out of new gasoline-car sales by 2035 is a long-run demand risk.

Regulation is both an operating cost and a competitive barrier: a tank replacement, contamination event or fuel-system upgrade can land as a large, site-specific cash expense that a well-capitalized operator can absorb and a marginal one cannot.

8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

Competition is intensely local — price, traffic access, visibility, brand trust, loyalty, hours, cleanliness, supply reliability — but scale increasingly decides who wins. Large operators gain purchasing power, distribution efficiency, loyalty data, compliance expertise and cheaper capital; strong regional chains can match some of that with local brand and disciplined site selection. Three forces are reshaping the field:

1. Price-leader clubs and big-box take share. Costco, Sam's Club, Kroger, BJ's and Walmart use fuel as a loss-leader traffic driver, pricing 20–34 CPG below local averages [10][11]. They are the growth engine of this NAICS code and a relentless squeeze on nearby independents; Costco is still adding stations and setting record gallons [10].
2. The majors have gone asset-light. Big oil largely exited owning stations, shifting to brand licensing plus wholesale supply [19]. That handed the field to independent dealers, regional chains, and large wholesale distributors/jobbers — themselves consolidating (Sunoco LP explicitly pivoted to wholesale after selling its stores to 7-Eleven in 2018) [16].
3. The pump-only independent is fading. With no c-store to subsidize thin fuel margins, the classic non-c-store station is being closed, sold, or converted — either into a modern c-store (moving it to 457110) or redeveloped, with UST cleanup often the gating cost. Meanwhile the c-store consolidators (Couche-Tard, 7-Eleven, Casey's, ARKO, RaceTrac) keep rolling up the store format next door.

The wide gap between 8,986 firms and 13,172 establishments [1][2] confirms the barbell: a mix of multi-site chains and single-location businesses. Consolidation runs through mergers and acquisitions (M&A), regional-chain purchases, dealer conversions, new construction and sale-leasebacks. National concentration, though, does not erase local price competition or guarantee attractive acquisition returns — the best deals are usually under-managed sites with strong traffic, fixable operating problems, or valuable real estate.

9. Risks

• Secular demand decline. The core product is in slow structural retreat as fuel economy improves and EVs grow [8][9]. This is the defining risk — the whole category competes for share of a shrinking market.
• Thin, volatile margins. ~15 CPG net after card fees [7] leaves little cushion; margins swing with wholesale-price moves (feast when prices fall, famine when they spike).
• Card-fee inflation. Interchange at ~2.5% is the largest controllable cost and rises with prices — a structural drag and a live legislative fight.
• Environmental tail risk. A UST leak can create remediation liability, litigation and penalties larger than the site's value — the classic way a small-station investment goes badly wrong [20].
• Format disadvantage. No c-store cross-subsidy for the pure pump-only independent — the least defensible position in fuel retail unless volume (clubs) or labor (repair) fills the gap.
• Capital intensity. Canopies, pumps, tanks, point-of-sale systems and any charging equipment all demand recurring investment.
• Regulatory ratchet. Emissions rules, EV mandates (California 2035) and any move on fuel taxes all point one way for gasoline demand.
• Competitive and location risk. Price-leader clubs compress the margins of everyone within driving distance [10][11]; a new interchange, traffic diversion or zoning change can weaken a once-strong site overnight.
• Supply, leverage and data. Dealers may depend on a single branded supplier; acquirers can overpay or misjudge remediation costs; and employer-based federal statistics understate owner-operated activity while adjacent NAICS codes complicate comparisons [1][2][5].

10. How to invest, and the outlook

Public routes (all indirect — there is no pure play):

• Diversified retailers where pump-only fuel is a segment — Costco (COST), Walmart (WMT), Kroger (KR), BJ's (BJ). You buy the whole company; fuel is a modest, strategic slice used to drive memberships and store trips. This is the cleanest public window on the actual 457120 economics, but you own everything else the retailer does.
• Wholesale fuel distributors and MLPs — Sunoco LP (SUN), Global Partners LP (GLP), World Kinect (WKC). These supply the stations rather than run them; the two MLPs are income-oriented, high-payout vehicles with the tax quirks the structure brings.
• Station real estate — Getty Realty (GTY), a net-lease REIT whose tenants include fuel and convenience operators; you take property risk, not fuel-volume risk.
• Adjacent c-store operators — Murphy USA (MUSA), Casey's (CASY), Couche-Tard (ATD), ARKO (ARKO). Not this NAICS code, but the listed proxies for American fuel retailing broadly, and the consolidators to watch.

For any public name the first question is classification: how much revenue comes from exact 457120 pump-only activity versus adjacent c-store retail, wholesale fuel, or real estate? The next: does it grow gallons, protect fuel margin, expand non-fuel profit, earn good returns on new sites, and keep leverage conservative?

Private routes (the only pure exposure):

• Own and operate stations — single sites or small chains. A small-business trade (SBA size standard $33.5 million in receipts [4]) with modest entry cost but genuine environmental tail risk from the tanks. Diligence should cover normalized gallons, fuel margin, non-fuel gross profit, labor, rent, tank age, environmental records, permits, competing sites, supply contracts, maintenance capital and exit liquidity.
• Fuel distribution / jobber businesses — the wholesale supply layer, a steadier-margin, relationship-driven business the public markets touch only through a few MLPs.
• Real estate and conversion — buying station sites for redevelopment, sale-leasebacks, or converting pump-only sites into c-store or EV-charging formats.

Outlook (forward-looking judgment). Gasoline volumes are in slow structural decline, so the durable winners will be the high-volume price leaders (clubs and big-box) and any operator who bolts non-fuel income onto the forecourt — a convenience store, foodservice, repair labor, or increasingly EV charging, which is beginning to appear at fuel sites as operators hedge the transition. The low-volume, pump-only independent with no second income stream is the most exposed to closure or conversion. Near-term, watch four swing factors: wholesale/crude-price volatility (which whipsaws retail margins via the rockets-and-feathers effect), consumer driving and employment, the fight over card-interchange fees, and the pace of EV adoption and club/big-box expansion. This is a mature, consolidating, slowly shrinking industry where operational excellence and cost of capital — not top-line growth — decide who wins. Public companies with broader retail or distribution platforms offer the cleanest access; private investors can find higher upside in site-level improvements but carry greater environmental, operating and liquidity risk.

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau. "County Business Patterns (CBP), 2023 — NAICS 457120" (establishments, employment, annual and Q1 payroll). 2025. https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/2023/econ/cbp/2023-cbp.html
2. U.S. Census Bureau. "2022 Economic Census — Concentration of Largest Firms," table EC2200SIZECONCEN, NAICS 457120 (receipts, firm count, CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50; HHI suppressed). 2025. https://data.census.gov/table/ECNSIZE2022.EC2200SIZECONCEN?q=EC2200SIZECONCEN
3. U.S. Census Bureau. "2022 NAICS: 457120 Other Gasoline Stations" (definition and exclusions, incl. 457110 / 457210 / 8111 / 445131). 2022. https://www.census.gov/naics/?chart=2022&details=457120&input=457120
4. U.S. Small Business Administration. "Table of Small Business Size Standards," NAICS 457120 ($33.5M receipts). 2023. https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
5. U.S. Census Bureau. "Economic Census: Coverage and Content" (employer-establishment universe; nonemployer gap). 2026. https://www.census.gov/econ/overview/mu0000.html
6. National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS). "Who Sells America's Fuel" (~148,000 fueling outlets; c-stores ~80% of fuel sold; hypermarket ~10x average-site gallons). 2025. https://www.convenience.org/topics/fuels-and-energy/who-sells-americas-fuel
7. NACS. "Who Makes Money Selling Gas?" (35–40 CPG gross margin; 8.4 CPG card fees; ~15 CPG net; ~2.5% interchange). 2024. https://www.convenience.org/Media/conveniencecorner/Who-Makes-Money-Selling-Gas
8. U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). "Increasing fuel efficiency leads to decreasing gasoline consumption" (8.9M b/d in 2025; ~1% below 2024, ~4% below 2019; 2018 peak ~9.3M b/d; 2024 VMT record; forecast declines through 2027). 2026. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67426
9. EIA. "Electric vehicle sales fell as hybrid vehicle sales continued to rise in 2025" (HEV + BEV + PHEV = 22% of light-duty sales). 2026. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67144
10. CSP Daily News / Costco Wholesale. "Costco Sees Record Fuel Sales" (747 fuel stations; ~$29–30B fuel sales; ~34 CPG below local average; FY2025). 2025–2026. https://www.cspdailynews.com/fuels/costco-sees-record-fuel-sales-following-extended-gas-station-hours
11. C-Store Dive / Grocery Dive. "Inside Kroger's fueling empire" and BJ's fuel-location data (~1,731 Kroger fuel centers; ~200 BJ's). 2025. https://www.cstoredive.com/news/kroger-fuel-center-growth-loyalty/817939/
12. Casey's General Stores. Annual Report (Form 10-K), fiscal year ended April 30, 2025 (2,904 stores in 20 states; 3.197B gallons; 38.68 CPG retail fuel margin). 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/726958/000072695825000065/casy-20250430.htm
13. Murphy USA. Annual Report (Form 10-K), year ended Dec. 31, 2024 (1,757 stores in 27 states; 30.5 CPG total fuel contribution). 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1573516/000157351625000010/musa-20241231.htm
14. ARKO Corp. Annual Report (Form 10-K), year ended Dec. 31, 2024 (1,389 retail stores; 1,922 dealer sites; 280 cardlock; 30+ states). 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1823794/000095017025027737/arko-20241231.htm
15. Global Partners LP. Annual Report (Form 10-K), year ended Dec. 31, 2024 (1,584 owned/leased/supplied stations; 300 operated c-stores; 64 Texas JV). 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1323468/000155837025001925/glp-20241231x10k.htm
16. Sunoco LP. "Leading Energy Infrastructure Operator & Fuel Distributor" (15B+ gallons/yr to ~11,000 sites; 2018 store sale to 7-Eleven). 2026. https://www.sunocolp.com/
17. Getty Realty. Annual Report (Form 10-K), year ended Dec. 31, 2024 (1,118 net-lease properties). 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1052752/000095017025019976/gty-20241231.htm
18. Alimentation Couche-Tard. "Where We Operate" (7,300+ U.S. stores in 48 states). 2026. https://corporate.couche-tard.com/where-we-operate
19. NACS / LegalClarity. "How Branded Gasoline Stations Work" / "Who Owns Gas Stations in the U.S." (~40% branded; dealer, lessee-dealer, jobber and company-operated models; majors' exit from company-operated sites). 2024–2025. https://www.convenience.org/topics/fuels-and-energy/how-branded-gasoline-stations-work
20. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). "Frequent Questions About Underground Storage Tanks" (40 CFR Part 280; leak detection; financial responsibility; state enforcement). 2026. https://www.epa.gov/ust/frequent-questions-about-underground-storage-tanks
21. EPA. "Overview of the Renewable Fuel Standard Program" (RINs; obligated parties are refiners and importers). 2025. https://www.epa.gov/renewable-fuel-standard/overview-renewable-fuel-standard-program
22. EPA. "State Fuels," "Fuel Waivers," and "E15's Compatibility with UST Systems" (RVP limits; boutique blends; E15 summer waivers; tank/dispenser compatibility). 2020–2026. https://www.epa.gov/gasoline-standards/state-fuels; https://www.epa.gov/gasoline-standards/fuel-waivers
23. U.S. Congress / Office of the Law Revision Counsel. "Petroleum Marketing Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. Ch. 55" (franchise termination/nonrenewal protections; ~90-day notice). 1978. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title15/chapter55&edition=prelim
24. EIA and USAFacts. "How much tax do we pay on a gallon of gasoline and diesel?" / "How much do you pay in gas taxes?" (18.4 CPG federal gasoline, 24.4 CPG diesel, unchanged since 1993; 0.1 CPG LUST; ~33 CPG average state). 2025–2026. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=10&t=5; https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-do-you-pay-in-gas-taxes/
25. Company disclosures — major private operators: Love's Travel Stops (670 locations, 42 states), Pilot (Berkshire Hathaway–owned since 2024), Wawa (1,075+ stores; 885+ with fuel), Sheetz (700+ stores, six states), Kwik Trip (900+ stores), QuikTrip, Buc-ee's, and RaceTrac (800+ locations, 14 states; acquired Potbelly, 2025). 2025–2026. https://www.loves.com/about-us; https://pilotcompany.com/about-us; https://www.wawafleet.com/about-us/; https://www.sheetz.com/FAQ; https://kwiktrip.com/our-story; https://www.quiktrip.com/about-us/; https://buc-ees.com/about/frequently-asked-questions/; https://apnews.com/article/potbelly-racetrac-sandwich-convenience-store-8d6e8be23040ef88ed4121a30eb55950
26. Company revenue and market-capitalization data (Macrotrends / StockAnalysis / CompaniesMarketCap) for COST, WMT, WKC, ATD, CASY, MUSA, ARKO, SUN. 2025–2026. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MUSA/murphy-usa/revenue