Mining Fuel Supplier: Mine Site Diesel Delivery in Australia

A mining fuel supplier is late only once before the site treats them as a risk. The pit, the workshop and the camp do not share a servo at the gate. Mine site diesel has to be inside the lease, inside the induction, and inside the shift window. The litre rate is the argument you have after those three are true.

This is for superintendents, supply leads and contractors who buy mining fuel for production fleets. A light vehicle that can leave the gate is a different purchase. The standard is uptime, with a paper trail the site can audit: who entered, which tank took the product, what the meter showed, and whether the grade matches the engines.

What a mining fuel supplier is accountable for

Four things sit with the supplier. Product that meets the agreed grade. A vehicle and a driver the site has already approved. A drop inside a window the pit can hold. A docket that matches the meter, the tank and the clock. The dig plan stays with you. The boom gate stays a rule after the truck has arrived, including when the driver is tired and the load is full.

Name the facilities before the first litre is priced. The fuel farm, each day tank, workshop storage, camp or process generation, and any contractor pad that is not on the main farm. A line that only says mine delivery gets pumped into the wrong vessel, or it sits at the gate while people argue about the coupling. Put the tank ID, the safe fill, the fill point and the sample the procedure requires on the order.

Automotive diesel in Australia is generally handled as a combustible liquid. Storage still has to meet AS 1940, and the mine hydrocarbon standard sits on top of that. Follow the stricter rule on bunds, vents, ignition sources and who may start a transfer. A supply agreement does not license a tired tank, clear a blocked vent, or empty a bund full of rain.

Own fleet is a gate issue

Mines induct people, and they often approve vehicles one by one. A subcontractor who changes every load is a new medical, a new drug and alcohol clearance, a new vehicle check and, on many leases, a new induction. Atlas Fuel supplies mine sites on its own tanker fleet from Kwinana Beach. The company on the purchase order employs the driver who sat the induction.

If the mine is in Queensland or Victoria, confirm the run. Those states sit under the Heavy Vehicle National Law, and the fatigue module the driver is on has to match the trip. A lane the fleet does not run is a no at the quote.

Fuel farms, day tanks and the pit fleet

High-volume sites keep the fuel farm inside a band, then use service trucks or bowsers to feed the fleet. That job is onsite diesel delivery into storage the site controls. Direct wet-hosing of haul trucks from a road tanker is a different task, and plenty of mines ban it. Where the pit runs autonomous trucks, keep the road tanker out of the operating zone. Ask the rule before anyone prices refuelling as a nozzle on the plant.

Working capacity, ullage, tank ID and the fill point belong on every order. Shell volume is the steel. Safe fill is the high-level setpoint the site uses. A farm already on that alarm cannot take the load that left the terminal. The driver waits on the clock or goes back with product still aboard. Dip before the litres can still be cut. If the dig burned harder than the forecast, reduce the order.

How the tanker discharges into the farm

The transfer is a hydraulic job with a large consequence. Bond the tanker to the tank before the hose goes on, and break the bond after the hose is off and the drips are in the drum. Use the coupling the farm actually has, camlock or dry-break, in that size. An adaptor is a breach where the procedure forbids one. Caps go back on when the hose is clear, or dust from the corrugations rides into the next farm.

The pump is PTO-driven, so the engine stays running. Write that the engine runs, and write the exclusion zone while it does. Discharge at the rate the vent and the high-level alarm can live with. A small vent pushes mist if the compartment is emptied flat out, and a shut valve with nowhere to relieve punishes the hose. One person on the pad can stop the transfer.

Open the compartment you are discharging and confirm the others are shut. A foot valve left open migrates product or pulls air, and the meter records whichever it sees. The air eliminator has to be working so the docket is diesel. Clear the hose as the procedure describes, or the blow-down aerates the farm or sprays the bund. Stop on the alarm or the agreed ullage, even if the compartment still holds a few hundred litres.

State the hose reach from the approved park-up. If the coupling is further away than the hose, the driver gets asked to nose in past the traffic plan. That is how a tanker finishes against a bund wall or a windrow. Chock the wheels, leave the beacon on, and keep the bund drain closed. Rain in the bund is cleared before the truck is on the pad.

Reconcile the meter to the dip

Take a start dip and an end dip on the current tank chart, and set them against the meter. If the chart says the tank gained 20,000 litres and the meter says 24,000, hold the next compartment until someone finds which figure is wrong. Note the temperature and apply the contract correction before you argue the difference.

Day tanks, camp power and the workshop

The farm is the main storage, and it is not the only tank that can stop the site. Genset day tanks for camp and process power are often a few thousand litres, fed from the farm or filled direct because the farm is across the lease. Give that tank its own dip and its own lead time. It cannot share the reorder of a farm that holds several days.

The workshop bowser feeds light vehicles, forklifts and small plant. Some are road-registered and some never leave the lease. One shared tank needs tickets you can split later, or you need two tanks. Contractor skids are in scope only when the order names them. A second stop is a second permit on many leases. Waving the tanker to a workshop coupling nobody listed turns the drop into an incident.

Mobile plant stays on site storage

Loaders, dozers, drills, pumps and generators lose the shift when they travel for fuel, or when the last crew left a day tank empty. Service trucks fill from the farm and fuel the pit fleet at park-up, inside the site rule. The road tanker stays on the farm hardstand and gives the haul road to loaded trucks.

Inductions, fatigue and the right to be on the lease

No current ticket, no entry. Send the induction, the medical standard, any verification of competency, the PPE and the drug and alcohol rule before the first roster, and again when they change. Include the escort, the radio channel, the call-up points and the speed plan. A driver who learns the channel at the boom is already late. Where positive communication applies, silence is a stop on the way out as well.

Approve the vehicle with the person. Registration, combination, extinguishers, spill kit, chocks, UHF, beacon, and a pre-start the site will accept. Some leases inspect for soil, plant matter or weed and seed before a truck from another region enters. A fail is a turnaround with a full load, so wash and inspection time sit in the lead time. Escort in, discharge, escort out.

A failed drug and alcohol test on the morning of the run is a missed window, because the replacement has to be inducted as well. Put a second approved driver on the remote roster. One name means one illness, one random test or one expired medical takes the load off the board. Check expiry the day before dispatch, while a substitute is still free.

Fatigue is a legal limit on the recovery load

Fatigue law limits hours. In Western Australia, Western Australian Heavy Vehicle Accreditation covers fatigue, maintenance, and dimension and loading for fleets that hold it. WA sits outside the Heavy Vehicle National Law, so a national-scheme answer has not covered a WA mine. Atlas Fuel's tanker fleet holds WAHVA for the WA work that accreditation applies to. In Queensland and Victoria, ask which fatigue module the driver is actually running.

A recovery that would break those hours should not be requested, and a serious supplier will not offer it. A same-day run from the coast to an inland mine is often illegal for the driver who would have to start now, even when the product is in the yard and night shift wants it. Commit the load on the previous cycle, with the rest taken and hours left for the usual blast delay.

The safety system still has to work on the pad

ISO 45001 is the safety system, ISO 14001 the environmental system, and ISO 9001 the quality system. On a mine the environmental piece is hydrocarbons, drains, bunds and a spill response that matches the site procedure. Atlas Fuel holds all three. Treat the certificates as evidence a system exists, then test who stops the pump, how a coupling spill is reported, and who attends a disputed load. The site procedure governs the pad.

Shift windows and how the depot books them

Blasts, crib, fatigue breaks and haul-road priority will move a fuel window. The dispatcher has to take a shut pit and rebook inside the buffer you hold. A desk that only knows metro slots will promise 10:00 and arrive into a blast exclusion. Give the reorder point in hours of production as well as litres, so both sides see the same cliff.

Use your own burn. A mid-size pit might use about 50,000 litres from one day-shift start to the next. If honest lead time from the load point is two days, once loading, rest and the window are included, reorder at two days of burn plus one missed window. A farm run down to one shift, on the promise the truck comes tomorrow, stops the diggers if the road closes. Use the burn in your own dip book.

Before a window is promised, the depot needs product at the lift point, a combination the permit and the lease both accept, a driver whose hours cover the trip plus your usual delay, and a named person with confirmed ullage. The day before, dispatch sends driver name, registration, combination, ETA, litres and tank ID. The site sends the escort, any blast, and a fresh dip.

Night shift is normal. So is an access road that is daylight-only because it is unsealed, unlit, or closed to heavy vehicles after dark. Write which one you are. A 06:00 to 08:00 window, with a driver who arrives on ninety minutes of hours, fails the first long blast. Book a driver who can legally wait, or a park-up off the lease and a second call-up.

Shutdowns, cyclones and a burn rate that moves

A shutdown drops the burn, then spikes it when every machine fuels on the restart. Tell the supplier the week before. A standing order through the shutdown overflows the farm. One that was cancelled and not restarted stocks you out on the first production day. Northern mines add a pre-cyclone top-up while the road is open. After the access closes, the buffer is diesel already inside the lease, in a tank that can take it.

Road trains, mass, density and temperature

A semi that suits a hardstand near the terminal is the wrong tool for a remote farm taking a B-double, a double or a triple. The combination that is legal to the intersection may have to break up at the boom. Plenty of sites drop the dog trailers at an assembly area and bring the lead trailer in. Write where the remaining trailers park, who watches them, and how long the break-up adds.

Ask which combinations the supplier will load and which they will refuse. Ask for litres on that route at the mass the permit allows. The water capacity on the barrel is not the payload. Diesel sits at about 0.84 kilograms a litre at 15 degrees, so the combination often hits its mass limit with space still in the compartments. Order the litres the truck can legally carry.

Heat changes observed volume for the same mass. Product lifted on a cool coastal morning and discharged on a hot inland afternoon will not move the tape the way a raw dip comparison suggests. Agree observed litres or litres corrected to 15 degrees, and print that basis on the docket. Apply it before anyone calls the load short.

The hardstand has to carry the axle, the turning circle and the swing of the combination you approved. A pad poured for a rigid will not take a triple. Remote work is priced as a journey. A few thousand litres on a long haul is a short drop, on its own line. The exception is a day tank that will stop camp power or a process genset. Name it and price it as a short drop.

Remote haul from the terminal to the lease

A coastal terminal to a Pilbara or Goldfields mine is a long piece of fuel transport. Lead time includes loading, the rest the trip requires, roadworks, weather and the window at the far end. Quote the lane from the yard that will load. Cyclone season in the north, rain on an unsealed access, and a weed and seed inspection if you run one, all sit inside that cycle. Size the farm for the cycle plus one missed load.

On the haul, load the agreed grade into clean diesel compartments with hatches that seat. Dust and a long slosh find a hatch that was nearly shut. Ask what was in the compartment last, and what the dedication or flush rule is, before the first mine load. At the farm, leave a known water bottom or dirt load alone. Fix the tank, then fill it.

Mine site diesel quality, water and filtration

Buy a specified grade. In Australia that is generally automotive diesel under the national fuel quality standards, with sulfur at the automotive limit of 10 milligrams per kilogram. A nickname is not the spec. Get any other grade in writing and confirm the engines are warranted for it. If biodiesel blends are banned on site, put that in the grade clause. AdBlue stays in its own tank and out of the diesel compartment.

Water and dirt take haul trucks and fixed plant offline. Free water comes from a tank that breathes, an open hatch, rain past a bad seal, or a load that should have been refused. Paste on a dip tape shows free water. A settled bottom sample in a clear jar shows water and heavy dirt. Haze is separate. Cold fuel can look dull when wax or dissolved water comes out of solution on an inland morning. Paste and a settled jar split that haze from a water bottom.

Warm storage with a water interface grows microbial contamination. The fuel smells sour, the rag is dark, and filters slime. Quarantine and stop issuing. A biocide poured in and sent straight to common-rail engines turns a storage fault into an engine fault. Test before the tank returns to service, including a shutdown farm before the first shift back. Diluting a foul tank doubles the quarantine and wrecks the sample.

What the filters are there to do

A discharge filter, where the site specifies one, protects the farm from the hose and the compartment. Fit the micron named in the procedure, in date. Use a coarser element on the tanker and a finer one, sometimes a water-block, at the dispenser. If the engine maker names a cleanliness code, the bowser has to meet it. A water-block that has shut is working. Pulling it and pumping sends water to the engine.

A fast fill stirs sediment already in the farm, and the bowser wears it next shift. A bank of filters points at the storage or the load. Stop, and take a bottom sample and a line sample. Take any required retain at the start of discharge, before blow-back from the farm. Use fuel testing when the procedure or the equipment owner wants a laboratory result. Density well outside the range you expect for automotive diesel is a reason to stop.

Emergency supply and after-hours drops

Call an urgent load when the farm will miss the next production shift, when a genset day tank is the camp's power, or when a missed window has eaten the buffer. Give the dip, the tank that will stop, what stops with it, the access rule at that hour, and the name of the person meeting the truck. Ullage still applies. An emergency delivery into a full farm is a truck parked in the way.

Define after hours as a clock: the hour, weekends, public holidays, and whether the gantry is loading. A surcharge with no clock is an open invoice. At night the truck can only deliver what can still be lifted, or what is already on board or in a depot tank. Ask which, before the pit plan assumes an open terminal. The night minimum is often higher, and the tank still has to be able to take it.

Atlas Fuel's dispatch provides 24/7 emergency onsite diesel across Perth, Kwinana Beach and regional Western Australia, when the site will open. Queensland and Victoria are planned supply, on their own lead time. Emergency on a mine still means an inducted driver, an open gate, light on the coupling and the way out, and room in the tank. Some sites only receive an escorted driver after dark. A week that is urgent every Thursday is a reorder problem, priced at the urgent rate.

Price, minimums, waiting and the tax credit

Build the price off terminal gate prices or another reference you can audit, plus a differential, plus freight for the lane. Name the terminal. A Kwinana diesel terminal gate price refers to a load lifted there. Brisbane or Melbourne is a different market on the same day. The wholesale series buyers use includes excise and excludes GST. It also excludes freight, the differential, waiting and any short-drop fee. Reconstruct the cent. A single number with no anatomy cannot be checked when the market moves.

A fixed price gives a campaign a ceiling. Someone still wears the terminal move, so write who, the dates, and what is included. Waiting needs free minutes and a rate after that. Some cards call the clock demurrage. Pay for waiting the site causes: no escort, a wrong dip, a coupling that was not on the order. A blast, crib lock or haul-road stop you put in the pre-start is a constraint already declared. Once the delay would bust the driver's hours, rebook.

When product is tight, allocation should prefer contracted mine volume you have forecast, and the agreement should say so. A verbal assurance loses to another customer's written litres. Forecast by site each month, and update it when a shutdown or an extra digger changes the burn. Minimums are litres by zone and combination, with a short-drop fee underneath. Metro minimums are often a few thousand litres. Remote minimums follow the kilometres and the trailer. Compare the same drop.

Fuel tax credits may apply to eligible off-road mining use. Rates and categories change. Check the Australian Taxation Office before anyone builds the credit into the litre price. Keep commercial accounts and their tickets split between off-road pit burn and any on-road or non-mine fleet. The docket shows what arrived, which tank, and whether litres were observed or corrected to 15 degrees. It does not show which activity burned them. The business lodges the claim.

A supplier who also does marine fuel, agricultural work and commercial yards can hold a mine roster if that roster is protected. Atlas Fuel does those other sectors. That suits a contractor with a yard and a pit on one account, if the reorder points stay separate. Harvest or a metro panic has to leave the mine truck alone. Put mine priority, for trucks and for product, in the agreement next to the forecast.

An own-fleet supplier as the benchmark

Atlas Fuel is a practical ruler where the work matches the work it does. The company is 100 per cent Australian-owned, operating from Kwinana Beach since 2010 on its own tankers. Stated supply is centred on Perth and regional Western Australia, and planned supply extends to Queensland and Victoria. Dispatch and the driver are the same business. Use that comparison when another quote cannot name the yard or the inducted driver.

Send the tank map, safe fills, coupling, hose reach and the wet-hosing rule. Send the induction pack, the approved combinations, and what a blast does to the window. Send monthly litres, and the weeks a shutdown or a campaign changes them. Talk to dispatch with that brief and the quote can name a vehicle, a minimum, a lead time and a window. A supplier who cannot pass the gate on paper will not pass it at 05:00.

• Fuel farm and day-tank map, with working capacity, safe fill and ullage.
• Wet-hosing rule in writing, and whether an autonomous zone bars the tanker.
• Induction pack, vehicle approval and windows, including daylight-only roads.
• Lane lead time from the yard that will load, with fatigue included.
• Combination, deliverable litres, and whether the road train breaks up at the gate.
• Invoice basis: terminal, differential, freight, 15-degree correction, minimum, waiting.
• Forecast volume, allocation if product is short, and the split for fuel tax credits.
• Disputed-load path: stop issuing, sample, docket, tank ID and time.

FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

Straight answers to the questions site managers, fleet controllers and farm operators usually raise before locking in a fuel account.

What should a mine expect from a mining fuel supplier?

The agreed grade, an approved driver and vehicle, a drop inside a window the pit can hold, and a docket that matches the meter and the named tank. They should already work to inductions, fatigue on that lane, and the difference between a farm fill and a wet-hose. Safe fill, coupling and hose reach go on the order before the truck is loaded. A litre rate without that pack is a trading offer.

How do inductions and fatigue rules affect mine site diesel?

Without a current induction the truck waits or turns around. A failed drug and alcohol test, an expired medical or a lapsed competency does the same, and the replacement has to be approved too. Fatigue can make a same-day coastal recovery illegal even when night shift wants the fuel. In Western Australia, ask whether the fleet holds WAHVA and leave hours for the usual blast delay. In Queensland and Victoria, ask which Heavy Vehicle National Law module the driver is on. Atlas Fuel's WA tankers hold WAHVA, and they are inducted like any other vehicle.

Should a mine take fuel-farm fills or direct machine refuelling?

Put bulk mining diesel into the fuel farm or the named day tanks. Refuel machines from that storage with service trucks or bowsers, under the site rule. Wet-hosing from a road tanker is banned on plenty of mines, and it is the wrong tool in an autonomous zone. The tanker stays on the farm hardstand, bonded, with one person who can stop the pump. Buy that method in writing. A second stop at the workshop needs its own permit.

What does a road train change on a remote mine delivery?

The highway combination and the combination the lease will accept often differ. Confirm whether a B-double, a double or a triple may enter, or whether the dog trailers drop at an assembly area and the lead trailer comes in. Order deliverable litres at legal mass, not the water capacity on the barrel. Diesel reaches legal mass with space left in the compartments, and heat changes the observed volume. Agree observed litres or litres corrected to 15 degrees, and match the hardstand and the minimum to the combination that will pass the gate.

How do we handle water, filters and a load that looks wrong?

Paste for free water and settle a bottom sample before you condemn the load or accept it. Haze on a cold morning can be wax or dissolved water, which is different from a water bottom. A sour smell, slime or a visible water layer means quarantine. Stop issuing and leave the tank undiluted. Leave a water-block that has shut in the circuit until you know why. Keep the docket, tank ID, time and any retain, and test when the procedure requires it.

How should mining diesel be priced, and what is a fair minimum?

Rebuild the cent from a named terminal gate price, plus differential, plus freight for that lane. The wholesale series includes excise and excludes GST, freight, waiting and the short-drop fee. State whether litres are observed or corrected to 15 degrees. A fixed figure needs dates and a list of what is inside it. Set the minimum in litres by zone and combination. Remote minimums follow the kilometres. The short-drop fee and waiting after the free minutes are their own lines. Protect forecast mine volume in writing for weeks when terminals allocate.

What has to be true before an after-hours or emergency mine drop?

Have the dip, the tank that will stop, what stops with it, a person to meet the truck, light, ullage, and an induction valid at that hour. The access road has to be legal for that combination in the dark, and some mines will only take an escorted driver. Atlas Fuel provides 24/7 emergency onsite diesel across Perth, Kwinana Beach and regional Western Australia when the site can receive the truck. Queensland and Victoria are planned on their own lead time. Ask whether product can still be lifted, and what the night minimum is. Urgency every Thursday means the reorder point is wrong.

What records support a fuel tax credit and a disputed load?

For a dispute, keep the meter print, start and end dips, tank ID, time, jar photos, and any retain taken before the hose was cleared. Stop issuing until the site procedure clears the product. Eligible off-road mining use may qualify for a fuel tax credit. Rates change, so check the Australian Taxation Office before the credit is built into the price. The docket shows litres received, the tank, and whether they were corrected to 15 degrees. Split tickets or tanks between pit burn, camp or process power, and any on-road fleet. The business lodges the claim.