With the official start of the 2024 Hurricane season approaching, now is the time for fuel operators to check protocols and anticipate the potential impacts of storms and natural disasters. There’s no disputing the fact that the frequency and severity of such events has increased, which is why preparing now for operational continuity, as well as service and supply chain contingencies, is critical.  

In just the first quarter of 2024, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has already recorded several “billion-dollar weather events” across the central, southern, and northeast regions of the United States. These severe storms, including tornadoes, high winds, and baseball-sized hail, have caused almost $6 billion in damages, and taken several lives. Add the fact that this closely followed extreme east coast storm-surge flooding in December, and a six-month drought in the South and Midwest between spring and fall 2023. It’s clear that climate change will continue to spur unpredictable weather challenges for the foreseeable future. 

The true cost of weather events 

Downtime caused by severe conditions can negatively impact fuel operations and revenue long after the storm clouds have parted. Managing fallout beyond interruptions in service, fuel operators may be left to deal with physical damage to infrastructure and fuel systems. Repairs, especially when those who can make them may be overwhelmed with requests, cost even more time and money. To top it off, the amount of time it will take to get back on track can be tough to estimate following a disaster.  

To best prepare for the unpredictability of severe weather, fuel operators must focus on a few key preventative measures: 

• Prioritize regular fuel supply chain maintenance and critical facility system updates to spot vulnerabilities early 
• Inspect tank equipment and vent lines for damage that could invite the risk of water ingress 
• Check for gaps or cracks in caps, gaskets, grommets, and spare risers to spot potential breach points 
• Look for cracked or settling concrete that could damage components below ground 
• Put a system in place to track water entry above a given threshold 

The value of integrated technology 

With severe weather events increasing year over year, enhanced monitoring and response capabilities can mean the difference between coming through a storm fully operational or managing costly downtime for days to weeks afterward. Industry-specific technology has become a vital tool for fuel operators to strengthen storm preparedness. 

Titan Cloud’s Fuel Asset Optimization platform does this by providing fuel operators with:  

• End-to-end visibility of fuel supply chain systems via one single, centralized overview 
• Automated water trend reports to flag ingress into tanks 
• Real-time monitoring of critical data before, during, and after adverse weather events to adapt to evolving conditions 
• Remote troubleshooting capabilities to address equipment issues quickly and mitigate potential losses, without having to brave a storm to be on site 

By leveraging innovative technologies and implementing robust contingency plans, businesses can minimize the impact of extreme weather events and safeguard their operations against disruptions.  

To learn how Titan Cloud can fortify your business against whatever Mother Nature sends your way this year, speak with one of our solutions experts.  

Connect with our team on-site to discover how our single fuel asset optimization platform can help you boost your fuel planning, logistics, maintenance and environmental compliance efforts.

Titan Cloud makes a splash in Europe

We’re thrilled to announce that Titan Cloud will be exhibiting at the 2024 UNITI Expo, the leading European trade fair for the retail petroleum industry that takes place from 14 -16 May 2024 at Stuttgart, Germany.

Visitors to Titan’s booth 5A70 can see firsthand our Fuel Asset Optimization Platform for proactive fuel management and connect with our team to discuss how we can help transform your petroleum business with our suite of software solutions.

Whether you’re looking to optimize your fuel assets, reduce fuel losses and variances, increase site uptime, streamline fuel supply logistics or simply explore new possibilities, our team can guide you every step of the way.

“Building upon our extensive global footprint and decades of industry expertise, we are strengthening our commitment to Europe, where we are actively expanding our customer and partner base. UNITI Expo provides the perfect platform to connect with local industry leaders and showcase our cutting-edge enterprise-wide fuel asset optimization software,” said Chris Cooper, President of International at Titan Cloud.

Trusted by top brands in the retail petroleum industry and commercial fleet market, including 7-Eleven, BP, Circle K and EG America, Titan Cloud currently monitors 50% of all U.S. consumer gasoline throughput and covers more than 85,000 facilities globally.

Titan Cloud optimizes fuel assets for industry leaders to better manage fuel supply logistics, reduce maintenance costs, increase revenue and ensure environmental compliance—from terminal to consumer.

Titan’s Fuel Asset Optimization connects people, equipment, and facilities to deliver precise data to the right people in real-time for better proactive decision-making and can integrate siloed systems, organizing key data to provide clear, current, and actionable operational intelligence.

Key highlights of Titan Cloud’s platform include:

• Enterprise-wide visibility, insight, and access control
• Centralized data source and consolidated asset repository
• Fuel analytics and automation to drive efficiencies and proactive management
• Flexible and scalable platform primed for acquisitions and divestitures
• Software-first, hardware-agnostic solution for unrivaled device connectivity, operational flexibility, and scale

If you’d like to learn more, get in touch with us to arrange a meeting or book a demo at UNITI with our team.

UNITI EXPO 24 | May 14-16, 2024 | Schedule a meeting

Location: Messe Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
Booth: 5A70

In the first session of our latest webinar series, The Future of Filling Up: Faster, Easier, Frictionless, Titan Cloud’s Vice Presidents of Solutions Consulting Brent Puzak and Jeff Sexten discussed the most common issues affecting fuel customers, and how data-driven connectivity can greatly reduce pain at the pump.

Here are some takeaways from the conversation on frictionless fueling. To see a full recording of the Eliminating Pain Points at the Pump for Your Customers webinar, visit here.

Outdated monitoring systems can’t keep up with the needs of today’s customers. 

In one webinar poll, most attendees reported that they routinely identify equipment issues in less than a day, or at most within five days. But resolving those issues takes much longer. Time to detect is one measurement, time to resolve is another; it’s that additional downtime that can frustrate customers at the pump who are faced with slow flow or a nozzle down.  

Using the angry customer method is far too common in these scenarios. Fuel retailers often rely on a customer to arrive, find a bagged nozzle, or a slow flow dispenser, walk inside the store and complain to the clerks.  Sexton recounted a recent experience in which his own frictionless fueling experience was impacted.

“Recently, I was one of those angered customers. I went to two different locations of the same brand, and both had over half their dispensers bagged out. I couldn’t wait, so I went to a different brand,” he said. “I’m a big brand loyalty person, and I went somewhere I never would have thought about going before. I had a good experience, the store was clean, I bought some things. That new brand just got a new customer because their dispensers were all up and running. It just grows from there.”  

Real-time monitoring technology can break the cycle. 

Titan Cloud research has found that reducing frequency and duration of system downtime can improve throughput by 3-4% with real-time visibility. By continuously processing data to detect anomalies minute to minute, fuel asset optimization technology can not only offer customers a frictionless fueling experience, but also provide notifications to retailers so they can address these issues significantly more quickly than waiting on that angry customer. 

“As we’ve mentioned, there can be events where it takes a while for a customer to come into the store and actually report it. What we were seeing in the data is that average downtime is about six consecutive days of nozzle downtime,” Sexten said. “You have to think about how to reduce that duration. What would it look like if we could cut that down to three days, or two and a half? How would that lessen the burden on the customer and the loss of revenue?” 

Long wait times turn away customers…and revenue.  

If customers are filling up faster, they’re happier. They also make room for more people to fill up at any given time. With an average customer transaction time of 15 minutes, the question becomes: Can a better flow rate lessen the time between transactions? Could it boost the volume of those transactions? 

“At 15 minutes between these transactions, you’re getting four transactions an hour. Multiply that over your hours of operations. The question becomes, how can we get more transactions inside of that timeframe with a faster flow rate? Being able to have more data to analyze this over the course of time is going to provide you with better results,” Puzak said. “There’s value to having that visibility, to be able to act on that data to improve flow rate and total gallons to drive up revenue at your locations.” 

Slow flow issues can be eliminated with data-driven, proactive maintenance.  

Highlighting slow flow as a particularly prevalent pump frustration that prohibits frictionless fueling, Puzak and Sexton used the example of filter maintenance to demonstrate how early anomaly detection can make an immediate and tangible difference. While well over half of webinar attendees reported managing filter changes via reoccurring schedules, they learned that data analytics generated by fuel asset optimization technology can optimize those schedules to pinpoint which dispensers need attention. 

“We know flow rate decreases over time without proper filter maintenance. Real-time monitoring provides data to identify precisely when the flow rate starts to drop off, and what filter needs to be changed so you’re not going out and changing all the filters at once if you don’t need it,” Puzak said. “Technology can also give you that visibility to know which ones are trending—that you may need to change out in the future—and if you’re sending a tech out there to fix something, you know exactly what fueling positions are down. That shortens your downtime because they’re not spending as much time on site trying to figure out what’s wrong.” 

Hear the full Eliminating Pain Points at the Pump for Your Customers conversation here.

Next up in The Future of Filling Up: Faster, Easier, Frictionless webinar series: 

Fuel Inventory Variance Control: Why Speed and Precision Matter | April 24 | Register Here 

From Chaos to Clarity: Demystifying Fuel Logistics | May 22 | Register Here 

Welcome to the first in our 3-part blog series on fuel inventory variance, an often-silent culprit that can wreak havoc across the entire fuel supply chain from terminal to pump, resulting in significant revenue loss over time. Take the following example. Scale these numbers over multiple c-store locations and you’re easily looking at six-figure revenue losses. 

In addition to financial implications, fuel variance is also an efficiency drain for fuel retailers. The time and effort needed to investigate discrepancies often lead to extended downtime and diverted resources. When issues go undetected, problems grow, multiple points along the supply chain are impacted, and resolution becomes costly. Staff members are taken off value-added work and operational costs increase. From the local retailer putting time into testing and troubleshooting, to the company controllers managing write-offs, the ripples are felt. 

Throughout this series, we’ll explore how fuel variance presents at different stages of the fuel supply chain, and how its specific impacts are felt throughout the journey. We’ll discuss how today’s data-driven tank chart innovation can track and flag variance issues from terminal to pump to enable quick resolution before small issues become major losses. Finally, we’ll delve into the bigger financials to reveal the connection between proactively tracking inventory variance and avoiding unnecessary write-offs. 

Terminal Troubles  

At the outset of the retail fuel supply chain, terminals and loading racks play a pivotal role. Here, fuel variance can emerge due to several factors, including temperature differentials that cause expansion or contraction of fuel volumes, leading to inaccuracies in inventory calculations. Terminal level calibration is also a factor, adding potential variance into the Bill of Lading (BOL).  

Calculation and measurement errors at the start of the fuel supply chain can also mean starting the process behind the eight ball by paying too much to a supplier without getting the promised quantity. Not only do you pay more for less fuel upfront, but these errors snowball through the process. Inaccurate initial measurements can lead to inefficient deliveries, error-filled order histories, potential shortages, and ultimately wasted resources and costs.   

Hauler Headaches 

It’s a sad but common reality. One dishonest driver skimming off the top during loading or unloading, or siphoning fuel for later resale, can result in significant losses if undetected. This also applies to BOL discrepancies; whether intentional or accidental, BOL errors can result in deliveries being charged at the wrong rate or to the wrong destination.  

Carrier error can add to fuel supply variance at this stage as well. Occasionally, an incorrect product is loaded into a trailer compartment or into a tank, or remnants retained on the trailer result in mixed or contaminated product. When the wrong product is delivered, a retailer receives inventory they did not order or intend to sell. If it can’t be easily resold, or if resources are needed to rectify the mistake, it can lead to a loss of revenue. 

When fuel is delivered into a tank and reaches a critically high level, it can also cause spills, sprays, and equipment damage; overfill events like these bring about unplanned expense and downtime. In short, at the transport and delivery stage, fuel variance factors can turn any transaction into a headache of disputes and financial losses.  

Other factors impacting fuel variance in the hauler phase include adjusted deliveries, a common issue that’s tough to measure. During fuel delivery at a high-volume, 24-hour location, for example, a retailer may have fuel dropping into their tank at the same time customers are pumping it out. The normal delivery process has no visibility into this, meaning that at the end of the delivery, they’re going to show a variance based on what they had on their truck versus what they physically dropped. 

Billing Blunders  

Likewise, fuel delivery can introduce inventory variance internally, on paper. Outdated billing systems often log incorrect delivery data, misstate numbers, cause tremendous lag time, and require extensive time and effort to reconcile records and invoices. Eventually, these discrepancies compound into larger more complex errors between what was delivered, what was billed, and what was actually in stock. It’s a scenario that not only erodes trust with suppliers but also complicates regulatory compliance and financial reporting.  

Storage Struggles  

Fuel stored in underground and above-ground tanks can be subject to variance factors even before being dispensed at the pump. Evaporation and meter drift–gradual changes in meter accuracy over time–and ATG calibration discrepancies can all contribute to inaccuracies between measured and actual fuel volumes. Seepage is another factor, with even minor leaks resulting in significant losses over time if left unchecked. 

These seemingly minor inconsistencies can add up to significant losses, acting as a silent thief eating into profit margins. This is especially true for retailers who rely on traditional tank charts rather than fine grain tank chart technology which provides real-time, multi-point monitoring to quickly detect anomalies anywhere along the fuel supply chain. (We’ll discuss these more in our next post.) 

Fuel Fleecing 

Despite best practices, fuel theft is an endemic issue that’s timeless to the industry. It’s a worldwide problem as well, with theft costing approximately $133 billion USD per year globally. 

While some may envision a heightened form of shoplifting, the reality is far more nefarious. Sophisticated theft rings have been known to use specialized devices to steal gas from pumps and resell it on the black market, or to physically change a pump’s pulser to alter the flow of fuel. 

When traditional fuel retailers rely on paper-based systems and people resources, visibility is lost on an inventory management system comprised of many moving parts. This creates an optimal scenario for thieves seeking to commit fuel fraud. 

A Big Problem Needs a Better Solution  

Clearly, fuel inventory variance isn’t just a blip on the radar; it’s a systemic issue with far-reaching consequences. From financial losses to customer dissatisfaction, every point along the supply chain is vulnerable to its effects. And yet traditionally, variance throughout the fuel journey has been measured at limited checkpoints using various siloed methods.  

In Part 2 of this series, we’ll dive into fine grain tank chart tracking capabilities and how this newer, more connected technology addresses variance issues from terminal to pump.