Bulk purchase of fuels

westgolf

Hi All,

The company that I work with purchases large quantities of diesel and SF Gas oil on an ongoing basis. The business is in quarrying and crushing. Given the large quantities on an ongoing basis what would be required to be able to purchase and collect in bulk from the tank farms in Galway or Dublin ports. We have the infrastructure in terms of storage and vehicles.

I recall a poster on here some time back who had a background in filling station/convenience stores but can't find his posts. I seem to recall that approval from revenue is also required but any info on their site is geared towards resellers ?

JMR

westgolf wrote: »

Hi All,

The company that I work with purchases large quantities of diesel and SF Gas oil on an ongoing basis. The business is in quarrying and crushing. Given the large quantities on an ongoing basis what would be required to be able to purchase and collect in bulk from the tank farms in Galway or Dublin ports. We have the infrastructure in terms of storage and vehicles.

I recall a poster on here some time back who had a background in filling station/convenience stores but can't find his posts. I seem to recall that approval from revenue is also required but any info on their site is geared towards resellers ?

I might be stating the obvious here but why not make contact directly with the sellers of the product you wish to purchase?

westgolf

JMR wrote: »

I might be stating the obvious here but why not make contact directly with the sellers of the product you wish to purchase?

Indeed, all part of the plan, just looking for any other pointers or experience.

silver2020

The margins are miniscule on fuel and you'd find the health and safety costs far outweigh the small benefits.

Most of the fuel names do bulk delivery and they generally own the infrastructure at the ports too.

A medium sized fuel station will sell 30,000+ litres a week. Even a small one will sell 10,000 litres a week and you'll never see them collect direct.

westgolf

silver2020 wrote: »

The margins are miniscule on fuel and you'd find the health and safety costs far outweigh the small benefits.

Most of the fuel names do bulk delivery and they generally own the infrastructure at the ports too.

A medium sized fuel station will sell 30,000+ litres a week. Even a small one will sell 10,000 litres a week and you'll never see them collect direct.

Agree totally with you on margins but as a specialized construction subcontractor burning 50K litres per month the opportunity to go direct to the source and remove the distributor would I believe prove to be a cost saving for us. Obviously health and safety comes in to the equation but we operate in an environment with high standards anyway.

silver2020

I would say the saving might be 1c-2c on a litre maximum before extra costs. So may not be worth it.

I'd call Applegreen - They set up infrastructure (pump & tank) if the volumes are good enough. An example would be a shipping company in Urlingford (can't remember their name)

westgolf

silver2020 wrote: »

I would say the saving might be 1c-2c on a litre maximum before extra costs. So may not be worth it.

I'd call Applegreen - They set up infrastructure (pump & tank) if the volumes are good enough. An example would be a shipping company in Urlingford (can't remember their name)

I was hoping for more of a saving. The idea is that we would collect in bulk with our own tanker, from say Galway harbour tank farm. As we move our plant from site to site, as work requires, we would refuel on site from our own tanker. This would remove the job of using a fuel supplier ,local to each site, to go to each work location.

silver2020

Personally I'd just try and negotiate with current supplier. There's a lot to be said to allow the experts in each field to be in your team rather than trying to mimic them.