In a long-running battle between oil refiners and the U.S. farm lobby over the future of ethanol fuel, biofuel producers may have just made a small, but important dent in big oil’s formidable defenses. Over the past few months, privately held retailers Kum & Go and Sheetz have become the first significant chains to announce plans to start selling E15, a gasoline with 15 percent of ethanol, 50 percent more than the typical U.S. blend. By the end of 2016, those two retailers plan to add E15 at pumps at 125 stations. That will more than double the number of U.S. outlets offering cheaper fuel with a higher ethanol content than the standard E10 blend that contains 10 percent of ethanol. If retailers continued to add stations at a similar pace over the next five years, there would be some 1,300 stations offering E15. That would still […]