Worked Example: USDA B&I Gas Station Feasibility Study in Oregon

This is a worked example, not a client engagement. It tests one invented project, a ground-up fuel station and convenience store sited in a rural-eligible area of Oregon, against the tests that a lender on a Rural Development business guarantee, and the Agency behind it, would put to it. No city, town or county is named: the example asserts rural eligibility for an unnamed site and does not check it for any real address. The sponsor's own pro forma, built on national market figures, sits beside the study's base case throughout, and the two are not the same. The base case is reported as the model prints it, and it falls just short of the lender's minimum.

At a glance. A new store with eight fueling positions asks for a B&I guaranteed loan sized to what the sponsor's pro forma supports. The sponsor's figures cover the lender's assumed minimum; the study's base case, which differs in one input (the wage), does not. Oregon's attended-fueling rule is the state point of the case.

• Total project cost: $4,667,835
• Sponsor's loan request: USDA B&I guaranteed loan (85% guaranteed): $3,420,000
• Sponsor equity at the request: $1,247,835
• Stabilized net operating income after replacement reserve (study base case): $443,186
• Debt service coverage at stabilization (study base case): 1.22x
• Sponsor's pro forma coverage at the request (market figures): 1.25x
• Volume needed for the binding minimum (percent of base case): 100.9%

What a Feasibility Consultant Tests First on a Rural Oregon Fuel Station

A lender looking at a fuel station asks one thing before anything else: after the cost of the gallons, the card fees and the people who must be on the premises, is there enough left to carry a loan that was sized to the cost of the buildings? A consultant would answer in a fixed order, and this example follows it.

First comes the place. A B&I guarantee reaches only rural locations, and the rule defines rural by what it leaves out: any place holding over 50,000 people, plus the urbanized fringe that adjoins one ^[1]. A site on the wrong side of that line cannot use the program at all.

Second comes the study itself. Past $1,000,000, a new business has to bring a study written by an independent consultant whom the Agency finds acceptable ^[2]. The request here is $3,420,000, so the study is a condition of the program and not a courtesy. The lender must also document any projection that departs from historical performance ^[3], and a new station has no history, so every projected figure in this case needs a stated basis.

Third comes the equity. Where a new business is still building and wants the guarantee before the work is finished, the Agency asks for balance sheet equity of 25 percent, or else a contribution from the borrower worth at least a quarter of eligible project cost ^[4]. A new business without that construction timing can meet a 20 percent balance sheet test, or the same 25 percent borrower contribution ^[5]. The model applies the 25 percent borrower investment, and the sponsor's own contribution is capped by assumption at 35 percent of total project cost, the larger of that share and what the program needs. Table 5 shows where the sponsor lands: the equity share is 26.7%, which is $80,876 above the program's test.

Fourth comes volume. A fuel station lives on gallons and on the store beside the pumps. The consultant would set the assumed volume against comparable stores and against traffic at the site. This example has no traffic count for any real site, so volume is an assumption anchored to national figures, and the sensitivity table shows what happens if Oregon's lower per-resident gasoline use is applied instead.

Fifth comes coverage. In the rule's own definition the ratio starts from EBITDA, takes off the replacement capital spending a borrower can reasonably expect, and sets the remainder over a year of principal and interest ^[6]. Table 7 prints that numerator as net operating income after the replacement reserve, with the study's column and the sponsor's column printed next to each other.

The answer is narrow. The sponsor's pro forma supports a loan of $3,424,517 at the lender's assumed minimum, and the request is that figure rounded down to $3,420,000. The study's base case differs from the sponsor's only in the hourly wage, and that single difference leaves coverage at 1.22x against a binding minimum, itself an assumption, of 1.25x. The project stands very close to its line, and the sections below say how close and what would move it.

Decision. The study would size the request from the income, test the equity rule second, and treat the attended-pump payroll as a fixed cost that the sensitivity table has to isolate.

The Oregon and West Coast Fuel Market Behind a Rural Station

Census Vintage 2025 estimates put Oregon's resident population at 4,273,586 for July 1, 2025, about 0.9 percent more than the 4,237,282 estimated five years earlier ^[7]. Growth that slow means a station here is underwritten on traffic that already exists. The Federal Highway Administration reports 37,399 million vehicle-miles in Oregon in 2024, of which 15,298 million were on rural roads and 22,100 million on urban roads ^[8], and 1,287,438 thousand gallons of highway gasoline against 609,687 thousand of special fuels, diesel among them ^[9]. These totals say nothing about one station.

Supply comes mostly from outside the state. The Oregon Department of Energy says Washington State refineries supply more than 90 percent of the refined petroleum products used in Oregon, and that an inland distribution hub serves southern, central and eastern Oregon ^[10]. A rural station buys by truck from a distant terminal, and the department lists compliance costs in its wholesale price, including the Oregon Clean Fuels Program and Climate Protection Program ^[11].

The retail prices in the model come from the federal Energy Information Administration's weekly survey of the West Coast excluding California, because no Oregon-only series was gathered. On November 9, 2026 regular gasoline averaged $4.584 a gallon in that survey, 80.1 cents above a year earlier ^[12], and on-highway diesel averaged $6.429, $2.268 above a year earlier ^[13]. The survey prices include all taxes ^[14]. The model carries 458.4 cents for gasoline and 642.9 cents for diesel, so fuel sales include the taxes the station collects. That inflates revenue and card fees but not gross profit, which is why the revenue line in Table 6 looks large beside the income it leaves.

Two tax facts matter to the operator. The Oregon Department of Transportation lists the motor vehicle fuel tax and the use fuel (diesel) tax at $0.40 per gallon each ^[15], and voters rejected the increase in Measure 120, so the rates stay there ^[16]. The state gasoline tax stood at 24 cents through 2010 and 40 cents in 2024 ^[17]. Oregon's corporate activity tax excludes receipts from motor vehicle fuel and from retail grocery sales ^[18], so the model carries none.

Property tax is sizeable and poorly anchored. Measure 5 limits operating property taxes to $5 per $1,000 of real market value for schools and $10 per $1,000 for general government, with bond levies outside the limits ^[19], and Measure 50 holds assessed value growth on existing property to 3 percent a year ^[20]. The Department of Revenue statistics that would give an actual rate came back unreadable, so the model assumes a rate of 12.0 per $1,000 on an assumed real market value of $2,800,000, below the operating ceiling and shown on its own line in Table 7.

Labor is the input that separates the two columns of this case. For July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027 Oregon's standard minimum wage is $15.55 an hour, the non-urban rate is $14.55 and the metro rate is $16.80 ^[21]. Tip credits are illegal ^[22], and increases follow inflation each July ^[23]. A site inside the metro boundary would not be rural-eligible, and the half-attended counties the example uses are standard-rate counties apart from two non-urban ones ^[24], so the legal floor for the site is $15.55. The sponsor's pro forma pays that rate. The study's base case assumes $16.00.

Decision. The study would carry Oregon's fuel tax at its present rate, leave the corporate activity tax out, hold wages at the legal floor in the sponsor's column, and replace the property tax assumption with the assessor's figure before any commitment.

Supply and Public Comps: What a Mature Store Sells and Earns

No competing stations were counted for this example. A consultant would map every seller of fuel in the site's trade area, but that cannot be sourced for an unnamed site, so this section is limited to public benchmarks for what a store of this type sells and earns. The chain below is public context only; it is not a party to this project, and nothing here suggests it would compete with one.

Three readings of the table matter. The first is volume. The National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) average store sells about 2,705 gallons a day ^[25], while Casey's General Stores reports mature stores near 3,334 ^[31]. Both columns of the model use the NACS average, so the case does not lean on the strong end of public data. It also applies no discount for a new independent store in a state where per-resident gasoline use is lower, and that omission is the main judgement in the volume line, taken up in the demand section.

The second is margin. NACS, citing OPIS data, puts the 2025 gasoline margin at 39.7 cents a gallon and the five-year average at 38.3 cents ^[27]. Both columns use 39.7 cents before card fees, below the 42.57 cents that Casey's General Stores reports for its own stores ^[31]. No Oregon margin was sourced to set against either. NACS puts a retailer's cost of selling a gallon at about 20 to 25 cents, about 8 cents of it card fees at the national price ^[28]. At Oregon's higher price the model's card fees come to 12.6 cents a gallon on fuel, as Table 7 prints, because the fee is a share of a larger sale.

The third is the income comparable, the first thing a lender would hold the study against. The Casey's General Stores average store earns $566 thousand of store operating income after store operating expenses and depreciation ^[32]. Table 2 sets that against this store. The model's EBITDA is $468,186, which is 82.7% of the chain's figure after depreciation, and well below the chain's earnings before depreciation, which the table puts at no more than $718,839 because it divides company-wide depreciation by the store count. Three differences explain the gap: the store sells fewer gallons a day than the chain's 3,334, it carries the attendant payroll that Oregon's rule adds, and its card fees on fuel run higher per gallon.

Casey's General Stores says it has historically located many stores in smaller towns and that its site selection stresses local population and daily highway traffic ^[33]. Eight positions at 338 gallons a position a day in Table 6 are not a capacity constraint. Most rivals for such a station are small operators: the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) says 95,672 stores, 63 percent of the total, belong to companies with 10 or fewer stores ^[34]. The consultant can observe the nearest one directly.

Decision. The study would treat the public benchmarks as a ceiling for volume and a floor for cost until a measured traffic count and a competitor survey for the real site replace them.

Demand: Per-Resident Fuel Use, Inside Sales and the Gallons the Store Needs

Demand at a rural highway station has three layers: through traffic, local customers and diesel customers in pickups and light trucks. The model rolls them into one volume and one inside-sales figure anchored to national averages, because no site is being tested.

On fuel, the sponsor's pro forma takes the NACS national average store, 322 transactions a day at 8.4 gallons each, 2,705 gallons a day ^[25], and the base case holds the same average store. The model splits that volume 13.6% diesel on an assumption, which gives 2,337 gallons of gasoline and 368 of diesel a day, or 987,252 gallons a year as Table 6 prints it. The example has no truck island, and diesel drivers may fuel themselves in every county ^[35].

The volume judgement deserves its own look, because the case turns on it. Table 3 compares highway gasoline use per resident. Oregon uses 302 gallons a resident against 374 for the United States, which is 80.6% of the national rate. That rests on 1,287,438 thousand gallons for Oregon ^[9] and 127,278,127 thousand for the nation ^[36], over resident populations of 4,265,324 ^[7] and 340,003,797 ^[37] on July 1, 2024. If Oregon had as many stores per resident as the nation, an average Oregon store would sell 2,181 gallons a day.

That is a sensitivity, not the base, for three reasons. Per-store volume depends on how many stores share the state's gallons, and no Oregon store count could be sourced. Mandatory attended service from 1951 to 2023 ^[38] may have left the state with fewer and larger stations, which would argue against cutting the average store by the per-resident ratio; that is reasoning, not a sourced figure. And the chain used as the income comparable sits in small towns yet sells 3,334 gallons a day. The evidence runs both ways, so the base holds the national average store. The cost of being wrong is printed: at Oregon's per-resident rate coverage is 1.08x in Table 10.

Inside the building, the sponsor's pro forma takes the in-store sales of $341.2 billion that the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) reports for the U.S. industry in 2025 ^[39] over the 151,975 stores in the 2026 NACS and NIQ count ^[40], which gives $2,245,106 a store. The Casey's General Stores average is $2,199 thousand ^[32], close to the market figure. Foodservice is 28.5% of inside sales, the NACS share for 2025 ^[30], so the store sells $1,605,251 of grocery and merchandise and $639,855 of foodservice. The inside gross margin is 40.7%, the realized ratio of $896 thousand over $2,199 thousand that Casey's General Stores reports ^[32]. The Casey's General Stores category margins, 58.6 percent on prepared food and 35.8 percent on grocery ^[41], would blend at the NACS share to 42.3%, above its realized result, so the blend appears in the comparable table as a reference row and is not used.

NACS's 2025 split shows the pumps ringing up 65.0 percent of store sales dollars while yielding 38.8 percent of gross profit dollars ^[29]. In the model fuel supplies 29.3% of gross profit, so the store carries most of the income.

Decision. The study would carry demand at the national average store only if a traffic count at the real site supported it, and would show the revenue-down and per-resident columns before the base.

The Site: Two Acres, Eight Fueling Positions and an Attended-Pump Rule

The model assumes about 2 acres at a rural highway site, bought at an assumed $450,000, with site work, paving, utilities and onsite septic or sewer connection at an assumed $520,000. Neither has a benchmark; a consultant would replace them with a seller's price and a civil engineer's estimate.

The building is assumed at 4,200 square feet. Its hard cost takes the midpoint, $362.50, of Rider Levett Bucknall's Q3 2026 indicative range for strip retail of $325 to $400 a square foot in its only Oregon market ^[42], which gives the $1,522,500 that Table 5 prints. Rider Levett Bucknall describes its figures as hard construction cost for each square foot of gross floor area, subject to site, climate, specification and market ^[43], and reports that the market's index rose 4.89 percent in a year ^[44]. No rural Oregon cost was sourced, so a metro range is a stand-in.

The fuel system is assumed at $820,000 for the canopy, four multi-product dispensers (eight fueling positions), two double-wall tanks, piping, sumps and monitoring. Federal rule requires secondary containment and interstitial monitoring for any tank or line put in after April 11, 2016 ^[45]. Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality runs the tank program ^[46] and requires every operating underground tank to carry financial responsibility, with proof such as a pollution liability insurance certificate submitted within 30 days after the previous proof expires ^[47], and notes that only permitted tanks may receive fuel ^[48]. The model carries tank pollution liability in its insurance line.

The rule that most affects the site is the attended-fueling rule. The Oregon State Fire Marshal says self-service gasoline was prohibited from 1951, and that state law was updated in 2023 to allow self-service statewide while still requiring stations to provide an attendant and follow specific safety requirements ^[38]. The state is then divided. In 20 rural counties drivers may pump their own gas at any station at any time ^[49]. In 16 others a station may offer self-serve at up to half its pumps and must keep attendants at the other half ^[24]. There the station must sign each type of pump, offer self-serve only during hours an attendant is available, and charge one price for both ^[50].

The example puts the site in one of the 16 half-attended counties, without saying which, because that is the class where the rule costs the operator something. The pumps follow store hours, which the model assumes at 17 a day, and one attendant is assumed on duty each open hour. That line costs $117,150 a year in the study's column of Table 7 ($113,856 in the sponsor's), inside a store payroll of $382,462. In one of the 20 counties without the rule the same store would carry no attendant, and the last column of Table 10 shows coverage of 1.55x on the same loan. No sourced volume shows that those counties would deliver the same gallons.

One limit should be stated plainly. The attended-fueling description comes from the Fire Marshal's own pages. The statute chapter on fuel dispensing sits on a host whose robots file gave no answer, so it was not read, and the case cites no statute text. The rules also changed once already, in 2023, and could change again.

Decision. The study would fix the county before it fixed the labor budget, and would carry the attendant payroll as its own visible line.

The USDA B&I Rules That Shape the Loan

The program is a guarantee, not a direct loan. The lender makes the loan and the Agency guarantees a share of it under 7 CFR part 5001, the 2026 edition. Table 4 lists every input of the model with its basis.

Rounded to the dollar; lines may not foot by $1.

Eligible uses. Guaranteed funds can buy land and buildings for commercial or industrial property, with the infrastructure that serves them ^[72], and machinery and equipment. A permanent working capital term loan can also carry inventory, supplies, working capital and startup costs ^[54]. They may also pay the guarantee fee, lender fees, professional fees the Agency accepts as reasonable, and construction permit and licence fees ^[52]. Every line of Table 5 fits one of those uses, which is why the guarantee fee is financed.

Guarantee and fees. For a B&I loan below $5 million, the FY 2026 notice lists four numbers: 85 percent guaranteed, a one-time fee of 3.0 percent, a retention fee of 0.55 percent a year, and 0.50 percent more if the note guarantee comes before construction ends ^[55]. They take effect October 1, 2025 ^[73]. No newer notice was found. The one-time fee is the loan times the guaranteed share times the rate, and the lender may pass it to the borrower ^[56]; the rate ceiling is 5 percent ^[74]. On the request the fee is $87,210, financed. The model assumes the guarantee follows completion, so the pre-completion add-on ^[57] is not charged. The retention fee multiplies a rate by the year-end principal balance and by the guaranteed share ^[58]; the lender pays it to keep the guarantee valid and may pass it to the borrower ^[75]. The base case leaves it out, and Table 9 prints a memo row: coverage of 1.17x in the study's column and 1.20x in the sponsor's if the borrower pays it.

Equity and risk. The Agency may raise the equity requirement for a loan it judges to carry higher risk ^[76], so the model leaves room above the program's 25 with a sponsor cap, an assumption, of 35%.

Terms. The final maturity follows the justified useful life of what secures the loan, never beyond 40 years ^[66]. Both portions amortize over the same term on a schedule that retires the debt without a balloon payment ^[65]. The interest rate is a matter of negotiation, and the rule lets it be fixed, variable, or a blend of the two ^[64]. The model assumes one note amortizing over 20 years, priced off a prime rate of 7.00 percent ^[63] with an assumed spread of 1.75%, which makes the note rate 8.75%. The model's $120,000 of interest during construction is an assumption for an interim construction loan that the guaranteed loan would take out ^[53].

Coverage. The part as read asks that the conditional commitment and loan agreement set a coverage requirement only where the lender or the rule calls for one, and it names no fixed minimum for a new loan ^[67]. The study therefore tests coverage against one number, the lender's assumed 1.25x. There is no program floor to weigh against it, so the lender's assumption is the minimum that binds. It is stated as an assumption because the rule as cited supplies no number to rest it on.

Decision. The study would size the loan to the binding lender minimum, apply the borrower-investment rule as the program's own test, and keep the retention fee outside the base case as a stated memo.

What the Station Costs and How the Loan and Equity Fund It

Table 5 builds the project. Land is an assumed $450,000, site work an assumed $520,000, the store building $1,522,500, the fuel system an assumed $820,000 and store and foodservice equipment an assumed $380,000. Architecture, engineering, permits and impact fees are an assumed $190,000, and construction contingency is a 5 percent assumption that comes to $143,125. Interest during construction is an assumed $120,000, closing and financing costs an assumed $110,000 (which include the independent study), opening inventory an assumed $200,000, and pre-opening costs and permanent working capital an assumed $125,000. Project cost before the guarantee fee is $4,580,625.

The fee adds $87,210, so total project cost is $4,667,835. The sponsor's loan request is the B&I guaranteed loan of $3,420,000, of which $2,907,000 carries the guarantee. Sponsor equity is $1,247,835. The loan is 73.3% of total project cost and equity is 26.7%.

How the request was reached explains why the two columns share one loan. The sponsor's pro forma earns net operating income of $453,942 and supports $3,424,517 at the assumed minimum on the base terms. The program limit, 75 percent of total project cost with the fee financed and assumed here from the borrower-investment test, is $3,502,453. The request is the smaller of the two, trimmed down to $3,420,000. The sponsor therefore asked for what its own figures support. The pro forma sets the loan, and the base case tests it.

Land, site work and impact fees are the least anchored lines, with no sourced price for an unnamed parcel.

Decision. The study would show equity as the plug between cost and the income-supported loan, and would replace the cost assumptions with quotes before fixing the request.

The Pro Forma: Revenue, Operating Statement and Ramp

Revenue. Table 6 builds revenue at stabilization; the sponsor and the base case use the same revenue. Daily gallons of 2,705 give 987,252 a year. Gasoline sales are $3,910,087 and diesel sales $863,198, for fuel sales of $4,773,284 that include fuel taxes. Fuel gross profit at 39.7 cents is $391,939. Inside sales are $2,245,106 and inside gross profit $914,786 at 40.7%. Other income, an assumed $30,000 for lottery commissions, air and vacuum, a cash machine and vending, brings total revenue to $7,048,391 and total gross profit to $1,336,725.

Operating statement. Table 7 sets the two columns side by side. Card fees are $182,478, from an assumed 2.6 percent of sales, derived from the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) figure of $21.3 billion of card fees in 2025 ^[59] on industry sales of $817.5 billion ^[60]. Staffing is the same in both columns: 55.5 staff hours a day, built from an assumed 17 open hours, 1.5 clerks on duty each hour, one pump attendant each hour and an assumed 13 hours a day of foodservice labor. The columns differ in the hourly wage and in nothing else.

The sponsor pays $15.55, the legal floor, which is the higher of that and the $15.04 NACS national average ^[61]. The study's base case assumes $16.00, an assumed $0.45 above the floor to staff a 17-hour, seven-day roster, and the floor rises each July ^[23], which this constant-dollar model does not add. That moves store payroll from $371,705 to $382,462 and EBITDA from $478,942 to $468,186. After an assumed replacement reserve of $25,000, net operating income is $453,942 in the sponsor's pro forma and $443,186 in the base case. Net operating income is 6.3% of revenue in the base case.

The National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) counts 19.9 store-level jobs per average store ^[71], and Casey's General Stores had 23,490 full-time and 26,358 part-time employees, about 94 percent in stores ^[70], over 2,944 stores ^[69], which is 15.9 employees a store. This store runs 388.5 staff hours a week before the owner-manager. That is light against both benchmarks, though the store is open fewer hours than a round-the-clock store, and a lender would ask whether the roster covers peak periods. The base case's higher wage is the study's only concession to that doubt.

Operating costs other than payroll are assumptions with no public anchor, the real property tax of $33,600 being the weakest. A NACS research note from August 2026 says direct store operating costs have climbed steeply and keep growing faster than pretax profit ^[77], so Table 10 prints an expense column.

Ramp. A new store does not start at the national average. In Table 8 the assumed ramp starts the first year at 80% and the second at 92%. Net operating income is $212,336 in year 1 and $350,846 in year 2, against debt service of $362,675. Cash after debt service is a shortfall of $150,339 in year 1 and $11,829 in year 2, and coverage is 0.59x, 0.97x and then 1.22x. The two shortfalls together exceed the assumed $125,000 of working capital, so a lender would ask for a reserve beyond it. The B&I rule as cited sets no two-year test, but a lender would want to see how the first two years are paid for.

Decision. The study would report stabilized and ramp coverage together and size working capital to the ramp's shortfalls, not to the stabilized year.

Coverage Under the Lender's Minimum, and How Far the Base Case Bends

Table 9 puts the two columns through the same debt. At 8.75% over 20 years, debt service on the $3,420,000 request is $362,675 a year, a loan constant of 10.60%. The sponsor's pro forma earns $453,942, which meets the assumed minimum at 1.25x. The study's base case earns $443,186 and covers it 1.22x.

The table prints the lender's assumed minimum of 1.25x and a binding-minimum row that equals it, because the B&I rule as cited states no fixed minimum for a new loan ^[67]. The lender's assumption therefore binds, and the base case misses by $10,158 of net operating income. The sponsor's pro forma clears it by $599, as one expects of a loan sized to the dollar from that pro forma.

The table also prints the loan the base case does support. Net operating income of $443,186 supports $3,343,369 at the assumed minimum. The fee recomputed on that smaller loan is $85,256, total project cost at that loan is $4,665,881, and sponsor equity at that loan is $1,322,512, or 28.3% of cost. These four belong together: fee, cost and equity all move when the loan moves, and equity at the smaller loan would be wrong if set against the larger loan's cost. The request sits $76,631 above the supported loan.

The two columns differ in one input. Revenue, gross profit, card fees, staff hours, fixed costs and debt are the same. The sponsor pays the legal floor of $15.55 an hour and the base case an assumed $16.00. The site is unnamed, so the study has no traffic count, competitor survey or local price to set against the national figures, and the only site-specific evidence that can move an input is the legal wage floor. A sponsor sizes to its best defensible figures. A consultant, asked whether a roster can be staffed at the floor seven days a week, holds a margin above it. That assumed margin is the whole difference between 1.25x and 1.22x. The state's lower per-resident gasoline use is applied in neither column and appears as a sensitivity.

Table 10 moves one input per column away from the base case, the request staying at $3,420,000. A 10 percent fall in revenue takes coverage to 0.90x and a 20 percent fall to 0.59x. A rise of 2 points in the note rate gives 1.06x. Operating expenses 10 percent higher give 0.98x. A fall of 5 cents in the fuel margin gives 1.09x. Oregon's per-resident gasoline rate, at 2,181 gallons a day, gives 1.08x. The last column removes the pump attendant and shows 1.55x, which isolates what Oregon's rule costs: coverage moves from 1.22x to 1.55x, with the loan held at the request. Every column but the last leaves the base case under the assumed 1.25x, and the revenue and expense columns put it under 1.00x, so a modest miss in volume or margin is enough to break the debt.

Table 11 turns the question around. Coverage of 1.00x needs 93.0% of base volume, 2,516 gallons a day and $2,088,506 of inside sales, or a fuel margin of 31.5 cents at base volume. The binding minimum needs 100.9% of base volume, 2,729 gallons a day and $2,264,864 of inside sales, or a fuel margin of 40.7 cents. That margin is above the 39.7 cents OPIS reported for 2025, and its 38.3 cent five-year average, as NACS cites them ^[27], and below the 42.57 cents of Casey's General Stores ^[31]. The gap is small, but it asks an independent store in a half-attended county to match the national average store and then slightly beat it, by its third year.

Decision. Reporting a $10,158 miss of the binding minimum, the study would leave every input alone, and would start any restructure from the supported loan of $3,343,369.

What Would Change the Answer, and the Restructure That Passes

Three things decide this case, in descending order of size.

The first is volume. The base case needs 100.9% of the national average store's gallons and inside sales to reach the minimum. At the 3,334 gallons a day that Casey's General Stores reports ^[31], Table 12 shows coverage of 1.39x; at Oregon's per-resident level it is 1.08x. A measured count on the real road is worth more than any other evidence the study could add.

The second is the fuel margin. At the chain's fiscal 2026 margin of 42.57 cents, with volume at the base level, Table 12 prints 1.30x. No Oregon margin was sourced, and the margin is the most volatile line in the statement. Card fees rise with the price, so the study would test the site's margin against a recent price history from its supplier before relying on 39.7 cents.

The third is the attended-pump payroll. Oregon's rule adds $117,150 in the half-attended counties. A change of county, or a legislative change to the 2023 rules ^[38], would alter the case more than any assumption in the operating statement. Other risks to carry forward are tank release liability, answered by the financial responsibility rule for every operating tank ^[47]; construction cost growth; the retention fee, which would bring coverage to 1.17x if passed on; and the first two years of the ramp.

The restructure. The base case fails by $10,158, and the model computes a restructure that passes both tests applied to a USDA loan: the lender's binding minimum and the program's equity rule. The restructure is a smaller B&I loan sized to the binding minimum, with the sponsor adding equity. Net operating income of $443,186 supports $3,343,369, which rounds down to a restructured loan of $3,340,000. The fee recomputed on that loan, at the same 3.0% rate and tier, is $85,170, so total project cost is $4,665,795 and the loan is 71.6% of it, inside the assumed 75 percent program limit. Sponsor equity is $1,325,795, or 28.4% of total project cost, which is $77,960 more than the request needed. That sits inside the sponsor's assumed 35 percent cap and above the program's 25 percent. Debt service falls to $354,191 and coverage is 1.25x, which meets the binding minimum.

This sponsor can make that restructure: it needs $77,960 of added equity and stays well within its cap. The restructure does not repair the ramp, since the first two years still run short, and it does not cure the volume risk. It meets the lender's minimum with a smaller loan and more equity, not with a better project, and a consultant would say so plainly.

Decision. The study would put forward the restructured loan of $3,340,000 as the request that passes both tests, hold the volume and margin questions open until the site is measured, and size working capital to the ramp.

Questions to Ask a Feasibility Study Company About a Rural Oregon Fuel Station

Does a USDA B&I loan for a gas station need a feasibility study?

For a new business, yes above $1,000,000, from a consultant the Agency finds acceptable ^[2]. The request here is $3,420,000, so the requirement applies, and the lender needs the study to substantiate any projection that departs from history ^[3].

How does Oregon's attended-fueling rule change the numbers?

In the 16 counties where a station may self-serve at up to half its pumps, the other half must stay attended ^[24]. The model assumes one attendant on duty every open hour, a cost of $117,150 a year in the base case. In the 20 counties with no such rule ^[49] the same store would show 1.55x on the same loan, but a lender would want volume evidence for that county first.

What coverage does a B&I lender want?

The rule as cited sets no number for a new loan ^[67], so this example tests against an assumed lender minimum of 1.25x, and that assumption is the one that binds.

Why does the sponsor's pro forma differ from the study's base case?

The sponsor's pro forma pays the Oregon legal wage floor of $15.55 on national average volume and margins. The base case uses the same figures with an assumed wage of $16.00. At the sponsor's wage coverage is 1.25x, the assumed minimum, and at the study's wage it is 1.22x. The difference is small, yet a lender's minimum is a line and not a range.

How should a borrower choose a feasibility study company or consultant?

The Agency requires a consultant acceptable to it ^[2], so the first question is whether the consultant is acceptable to the Agency and the lender, not only to the borrower. Ask for a sample that states the basis of each input, keeps the sponsor's figures beside the consultant's, reports a failing case as failing, and shows the supported loan with its fee and equity recomputed. A study that cannot show where its numbers came from, or reports every case as passing, is of little use to a lender.