Still Another Way to Steal Fuel From the Company -- The Sophisticated Way

When I was working for an Integrated Textile Mill south of Manila as their Plant Administrative Services manager, my department was in charge of receiving fuel deliveries for our 500,000-liter Bunker Tank as well as a smaller 45,000-liter Diesel tank.

Most oil companies like Shell, Calter/Chevron and Petron (Esso before) would employ third-party fuel tanker haulers to bring the fuel from the Pandacan Manila Oil Depots to our plant. And here is how the third-part fuel tanker operators steal our fuel:

Is there a hidden tank within the truck chassis?  (courtesy of afafueltrucks.com)

1.  Hidden within the fuel tank and towards the bottom of the truck chassis (or hidden between the chassis channel beams) is another fuel tank.  This tank is connected to the Main Tanker Tank thru a small pump.  The top hatch has a gauge to indicate the level of the fuel compartment as it was filled at the depot. As a procedure, our warehouseman will check that the fuel level is within the Gauge at top to make sure the tank is filled to capacity.

2.  Instead of a secret tank, the Main Tank is connected to the truck's fuel tanks thru a hidden pipe.

A fuel storage tank is as high as  a tall building. (courtesy of istockphoto.com)

When pumping starts, the driver will run the pump that will pump the fuel to our tanks.  At the same time, he secretly runs the other pump to pump fuel from the Main Tank to the hidden tank or to the truck's fuel tanks.

The driver makes sure always that the theft is small enough to fall within the tolerance (measurement margin of error) of  our huge Bunker tank even if the warehouseman conducts his sounding to determine the level of fuel that went into our tanks.  There is a margin of error because to take mearsurements, our warehouseman has to stand on top of the bunker tank which is as a high as a multi-storey building.  To take an accurate reading, the sounding tape scale has to be held perfectly vertical but with wind and height, the scale could be tilted slightly and that will already equal a couple of liters of fuel.

From the point of view of the manufacturing plant, their operating costs will go up. It is a Logistics concern from the point of view of the Fuel Tanker company in charge of the physical distribution of fuel -- Logistics is making sure the product arrives at Point B n accordance with the requirement of the client.



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