Gasoline Loading

I'd be curious to know how long it takes and how much is loaded from different areas of the country. We had truck and trailers in Las Vegas NV and they were what was called super tankers because of the amount of gallons (12450 gallons). It took us 20 minutes from the time we pulled onto the rack until we got our BOL's. We had to first load the truck and then unhook and pull up to load the trailer. The rack was first designed to load the truck and trailer at the same time but was never operational. All the piping was there but the people at the pipeline were afraid to load that fast. Since we didn't have ownership of the loading facilities we had to obey the contractual agreements set by our main office and the pipeline.

We also had a lot nightmares from their computer to ours which resulted in delays. If there were any lightning strikes anywhere around the tank farm you could count on problems. After the truck was loaded we'd pull our cards from the card reader and the information would go from us to TX then to CA and back to us in a matter of seconds all by phone lines. Plus they were old phone lines that had many problems. When the system worked like it should it was great. When you carded in the checks were made for the truck as far as certification, bonding, insurance, drivers medical status along with a CDL check, then it would check to see if the customer had the funds for that load, and a few other checks I have forgotten. I know there's a commercial software program that is used but we didn't have that. Our own company designed their own program to match accounting information that was specific to us. Of course I now hear it was taken out because of all the problems but when I did all the accounting and product balancing it was great when it worked. But just because of the computer problems we could add up all the lost time for our drivers and that was astronomical just for a month.

So I thought it would be cool to see the difference and all the problems from around the country. Is there anyone that goes to load and doesn't have any problems for at least a month? I know when you're at your own companies loading facilities there seem to be less problems because you're dealing with your own company but problems that are fixed right away at those racks seem to take forever at a common carrier racks. So lets hear the nightmares.

 

Exact time varies depending on where I go, but around thirty minutes to 45, an hour in some cases. One of the worst I had was when I pulled into the place to get loaded with fuel, and they had problems there. Dispatch rerouted me too another place. I killed about an hour and a half before I was given the go ahead to go elsewhere. However, I like that I am the one to load and unload. No forklift drivers to worry about or fearing that you will spend an entire day to unload. One of the best moves I made was to go into tanks from flats.

 

Way back when, Gulf Terminal, Oceanside, NY had 2 loading pipes for each product. You could hook up to 5 compartments at once, or load a 4 holer in less than 15 min. gate to gate. You hooked up and stood in a heated booth with a "deadman" button on the wall to start and stop the flow. That place is long gone according to Google maps satellite view.

 

Hi Mr GasHauler
Yeah, I'd say that around 25 to 30 minutes is about normal, if there is no line to wait on. The fastest being Marathon and the slowest being Citgo. Citgo seems to not only want to ask too many question, but they want acknowledgements and verifications that you understood the questions ... "Did you cut your engine regeneration system off? ( YES-NO ) Are you sure you cut your engine regeneration system off? ( YES-NO ) If we catch you with it on you'll be banned from the terminal, do you understand ( YES-NO ) If you can't load here your company will probably fire you ( YES-NO ) If they don't fire you for disobeying our policy, we can ban the whole company from using these facilities ... do you understand ( YES-NO ) Are you SURE you understand? ( YES-NO ) Trailer Number ( ENTER ) Don't lie to us about the number, we can ban you for that too ( Acknowledge YES-NO ) Are you loading ULSD? ( YES-NO ) Was the compartment previously loaded with distillates ( YES-NO ) Customer load number (ENTER). Destination ( STATE ) Branded or Unbrander ( YES-NO) PO Number ( ENTER ) ... Yeah okay ... I'm playing around here a little but you get the general idea. You know there are sometimes even notifications about your company that they feel they have to impart to you while you are loading ... ( Your company insurance is about to run out ... Workmans comp insurance runs out at end of month ... IT'S CRAZY.

Worst nightmare at a rack. About 20 years ago I went to BP to pick up a load ... no problem. Got to the drop site and put it in the ground but according to my stick readings I was missing about 3000 gallons. Double checked everything still missing about 3000 of regular. Ya know you can get fired for that ... losing that much gas and not knowing where it went ... somebody is bound to accuse you of stealing it or selling it to someone. My bills say 9000 gallons and my reading say 6000. I called the president of the company ... woke him up and told him the situation and he said he wanted to see me in the morning, but to go ahead and finish out my shift as we had stores that were almost out of product.
( While I'm driving all this is going through my head and I'm saying to myself that there is only one place this shortage can be coming from and it's got to be the rack ... I may seem a little wacked out from time to time, but I take my job seriously and make every effort to keep all my ducks in a row ) Sooooooooo the next load is coming out of BP also and I pull into the same bay, load, leave the truck in place while I go into the kiosk and pull the paperwork. It is showing 9000 gallons so every compartment ought to just about be topped off. I go back to the bay, climb on top and start opening dome lid covers ( yes, I know that's a big no-no, but I'm desperate at this point ) and the front compartment is only about half loaded ... the back compartment is down about 1/3, and 2,3 and 4 are also low. I close the dome lids, cone off the bay behind my truck, go back to the kiosk and call the terminal manager and explain to him what happened. He asked what the time was on the bill and I told him which was about 7 minutes prior to calling him up. He said to not move the truck and he would be there in about 15 minutes. We eventually got everything straightened out and received credit for the 3000 gallon shortage on the first load and almost 4000 gallon shortage on the second load and instead of getting fired the next day, got a raise for my diligence and saving the company money. Soooooooooooo yeah ... sometimes you can turn a bad situation around ... thank God it was just the terminal pumps going out of calibration ... I could have just seen me trying to explain to the boss man where all that gas went the night before ... NOT.

 

Gashauler, you were spoiled by those three arm racks. Kinder Morgan in Vegas is by far the fastest I ever loaded. Very few racks allow three arms at once.

 

You short a customer, your fired..... The oil company shorts a customer it's a honest mistake.

kinda sums it up....

 

By reading these few stories I guess we were lucky. Please keep them coming. BTW, we're told down in LA at the Vinevale Terminal they have the fastest rack in the west. I've been told by some drivers that they do load both the truck and trailer at the same time That's 5 loading heads going the same time. Their claim is 15 minutes to load a 9000 gallon truck. I've never loaded there but a few of my friends have and it is a nice place to load. We also knew just about all the operators at the Las Vegas pipeline and we got along with them real well. We never had anyone going around testing drivers or saying they were going to be locked out. I have seen drivers get locked out but they did some really dumb stuff like driving off with the loading heads still hooked to the truck. We never had shortages but one time I caught the pipeline not injecting our additive and I shut down all our loading until it was fixed. My first load in the morning I could not hear the additive pump kick in so I checked it and sure enough it was closed off. I was awarded a gold coin from the company which is really no big deal except the fact that I got recognized for going above and beyond. That's a nice feeling when you know your company is watching out for you.

 

How true ... but here is the other part that I have always wondered about. All those trucks that loaded on that rack between the time I pulled that first load ( and prior ) and the time I got back ( about 3 hours ) for the second load must have been shorted also ... those pumps didn't just go out of calibration for me ... everyone that loaded in that bay during those hours was also shorted ... how many people caught it ... and do you think that the terminal went back through the records to check and give credit for those loads pulled. I don't know, but I'd be willing to bet a dollar to a dime that somebody didn't reconcile their gallons when they dropped and ended up getting fired for the terminals mistake.

 

Yeah I've loaded 5 at one time, doesn't happen too often because you pretty much gotta have the right combination of products and load arms available on that particular load ... like 3 compartments of regular, 1 compartment of premium and one of ULSD and the terminal has to be set up in the right way. BP has started putting the ULSD on a seperate rack from the gas so you have to move the truck between loading gas and distillates ... but yeah ... occasionally I have done 5 at one time but the problem with that is that your VR system on the tank can usually only handle so much fumes being ejected at any one time. If the volume gets to be too much it can open the popit valve in the back of the trailer and expell fumes out the back of your truck while you arfe loading. If you look on the factory tags, on the frame of the tank, where it gives the compartment size in gallons that they will hold ... it also gives you a figure for maximum loading capacity/minute ... exceed that and the excess vapors are ejected out the back ... that's why some terminals have restrictions on how many load arms you can hook up at one time.

 

I take it you're talking about loading a semi. I can see the problem there and where you'd gain no time. But what I'm talking about is loading a truck and trailer where there's a tank up on the truck (4750 gallons) with 2 compartments then at the same time you're loading the trailer (7700 gallons) with 3 compartments. There's 2 completely separate loading stations with 3 loading heads each. There are about 30 feet apart and use the same computer. So after you hook up and the compartments are finished loading you usually unhook and away you go.