Iowa Department of Revenue Releases 2018 Retailers Fuel Gallons Annual Report

The Iowa Department of Revenue has completed the 2018 Retailers Fuel Gallons Annual Report.  The Report can be viewed here.  In 2006, the Iowa General Assembly passed legislation providing incentives for the promotion of biofuels.  The legislation passed by the Iowa General Assembly set an aggressive goal of replacing 25 percent of all petroleum products consumed in Iowa with biofuels by 2020.  The annual report prepared by the Department is used to measure the state’s progress toward achieving that goal.

In January, the Department of Revenue sends fuel retailers a request for a summary of motor fuel gallons sold in the previous calendar year. Requests sent to retailers may be in paper or electronic form. Retailers are asked to respond to the Department of Revenue by January 31. Historically, the response rate has been under 90 percent. The response rate from fuel retailers to the Department of Revenue’s request for 2018 information was calculated by the Department at 87.8 percent.  In completing the report, the Department of Revenue uses monthly motor fuel tax reports to calculate the gallons sold for the 12.2 percent of locations that did not respond to the request for information.  In total, the Department of Revenue identified 2,133 retail motor fuel outlets in Iowa.

Total fuel gallons sold in 2018 equaled 2,385,051,047. Total gasoline and ethanol blended gasoline gallons accounted for 1,558,995,653 gallons sold and total diesel and biodiesel blended diesel totaled 826,055,393 gallons sold. Ethanol blended gasoline sales accounted for 87 percent of the gallons sold in Iowa. E15 sales rose from approximately 28 million gallons sold in 2017 to 35.5 million gallons sold in 2018. Clear biodiesel gallons market share rose 4.9 percent to 66.4 percent of diesel gallons sold. Gallons classified as B11-B19 accounted for 55 percent of the total biodiesel blended fuel gallons sold in the state. Dyed biodiesel gallons accounted for only 19 percent of the dyed diesel fuel gallons sold in the state.

The report indicates that Iowa’s biofuel distribution percentage held steady between 2017 and 2018 at 13.4 percent.