Chapter 40-2 Monsters

[Red Shirt]

Snipity-do-dah for clarity:

• Thinking about the Mallers fuel depot, isn't that what they used to attack the Arena? I imagine it is close to being drained if not completely drained.
• And like CJ mentions, what is left is probably going bad. Most fuel only have a shelf life of 6 months before you have to deal with oxidization, and water contamination. Even with stabilizers added it starts breaking down between a year and 18 months, so I think we are getting there.
• I can't remember exactly how far in we are at this point.

Last first: We are coming up on the one year anniversary in the show.

About the fuel depot: A quick look at the Google maps satellite image of the tank farm/fuel depot shown out near the Maller's Mall looks similar to this one, the proposed NOLA Oil Terminal, which will have a capacity of 5 million barrels. A "Barrel" in oil trading is 35 gallons, meaning that this one facility has the capacity for 175 million gallons.

(Note: I'm only really comparing the newish looking silver tanks, those other ones may no longer be in use. In 2009, they may have been in use and the capacity of this one site may have been triple the NOLA facility.)
(I say this one site because a quick review of the satellite image for LA showed me that there are at least 20 more tank farms in the city. I stopped counting then. I have no idea what is in them, some of them have to be fuel.)
(Also note that I am being very generous with my "Ballparking.")

Now, the capacity of fuel trailers (of the type you would expect) ranges from 6,000 to 10,000 gallons. I believe that Tardust said they needed eight with two backups... for bombs he probably would have used the "big uns." That's only 100,000 gallons. That depot would, at capacity, have filled 17,500 fuel trucks. I doubt they depleted it.

Now, about the shelf life and stability of the fuel... my brief research has shown that the average shelf life is, as others have mentioned here, six to twelve months for both unleaded and diesel fuel. In an unexpectedly accurate use of YMMV, I have found some people reporting that diesel can store longer untreated and when treated can even last for decades!
I also learned that the degradation of diesel isn't necessarily in it's overall potency, it is water contamination, algae growth (yes, algae) sedimentation and other crud in the fuel. When you use untreated old fuel, the problem arises when the fuel/water separator and fuel filters can't keep up with the flow required to keep the engine running. If they were to use old fuel, if it is pre-treated before use, it will probably be OK.
Worth noting is that storage life greatly depends on the storage conditions... giant above ground tanks baking in the hot LA sun is hardly optimal.

TL;DR - There should be plenty of fuel in LA if they can just find it. Its shelf life will become an issue soon, but handled properly, it shouldn't be a problem.