Ask the Fuel Expert

There’s really nothing very fun about managing a fleet fuel budget. Nothing simple about figuring out where all of last year’s fuel dollars actually went. There’s the stack of receipts and the pages of invoices and a few spreadsheets that try to summarize it all. But there’s a lot those papers can’t tell you.

The word irony – like our oceans – is often abused. A great example of the correct application of the word, however, is “World Oceans Day”. Now already three years old, the first time World Oceans Day received any attention was right after the ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. How’s that for irony?

Unless you’ve been living on an island with Gilligan and the Skipper you’ve probably heard about the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. An explosion of the oil rig Deepwater Horizon on April 20, 2010 killed eleven workers and is currently spewing about more than 18,000 barrels of oil per day into gulf waters. The full extent of the damage won’t be known for a long time and the repercussions will be enormous. But what can businesses like ours learn from this?

Alternative energy sources are becoming more important every day but fossil fuel will continue to play a vital role in our immediate future. More power is being produced with sunlight, wind and geothermal, but the workhorses of electrical power generation in the U.S. are the coal and natural gas plants.

For all the talk about green energy — solar, wind, geothermal — our way of life is primarily powered by burning the stuff we get out of the ground with more than two-thirds of for electrical and transportation needs is coming from coal, fossil fuels and natural gas.

Refiners will receive a six-year reprieve from regulations being imposed on them by putting restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions under the climate bill introduced in the U.S. Senate this week.

The legislation is being co-sponsored by Senators John Kerry (D-MA), and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT). The electric power industry and the gasoline and diesel wholesalers will face caps on emissions starting in 2013 and will have to purchase emission credits at a maximum price of $25 per ton.

Everyone wants to save as much money at the pump as possible especially with the rising cost of fuel prices. You may not be able to control the price of fuel but you can change certain habits and follow some basic guidelines to help you save as much money as possible.

Rising fuel prices each year mean that the average driver, who travels approximately 15000 miles each year in a vehicle that obtains about 20 miles per gallon, will end up paying more at the end of the year.

I just about fell out of my chair. I know gas and oil prices have moved up over the last few months and we are on the verge of the annual summer bump in fuel prices, but when I heard about the possibility of a $7 dollar gallon, I had to do some digging. Where did that number come from?

It seems the prediction was made as a reaction to more stringent environmental controls on emissions coming in the future for both Canada and the US.

I used to cringe every spring when our Chief Accountant sent around the note advising me that it was “that time of year again.” I’m not talking about tax time, but time to plan the annual operations budget. Before resource management software came along we had to wade through a paper jungle just to get a ballpark estimate. Reports, notes, revise and re-revise, then repeat with the revised revisions that came in from all the other regions. And after finally receiving them, they had to be sorted, grouped and entered onto a single spreadsheet for all to read. Remember those days?

Nobody likes hassle. That’s why many fuel-reliant companies made the decision to use on site fuel storage tanks. It made sense. There was the convenience of having the fuel you needed close at hand, no need to drive to a card lock, and access was of course 24/7. What could possibly go wrong? I’ll tell you.

I like a good deal and as a business owner I always try to get the best price from our suppliers, while taking into consideration all of the facts looking beyond just price.

Take fuel for example.

If you are driving a few blocks to save a couple of cents per litre to fill up your car, it makes sense.