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Fuel Pricing and Buying FAQ
What is rack pricing?
Rack pricing is the wholesale, per-gallon price a supplier posts for fuel lifted at a terminal's loading rack. It can be republished as often as daily and is quoted separately for every product and every terminal. Many supply contracts are written as rack plus an adder, and many of those price on the day the product is lifted, not the day it is ordered.
Sources: Glossary: Rack pricing, Why your fuel invoice doesn't match what you ordered, EIA glossary: rack sales, Florida Statutes 526.303
How do I compare bulk fuel quotes?
Convert each quote to a total cost for the same delivered gallons, including freight, minimum-load charges and fees, then divide by the gallons delivered. A rack-plus quote, a fixed delivered price and a price-plus-fees quote can rank differently once the rack moves or a load comes in short, so compare them on the same delivered basis.
What is a fuel allocation?
A fuel allocation is the volume of a product that a supplier commits to make available to a buyer at a specific terminal over a specific period, typically a month. It sets how much a buyer can lift under that supply arrangement, so buyers need to know how much of each allocation is left before committing a truck to a load.
Source: Glossary: Fuel allocation
What is a fuel jobber?
A jobber is a wholesale fuel buyer who purchases at the terminal rack and resells to retail stations, commercial accounts or end users, usually handling delivery as well. A jobber takes title to the fuel between the supplier and the customer, so it carries the price risk in between; its margin depends on buying well across terminals and days, keeping trucks full and being paid on time.
Sources: Glossary: Jobber, FTC, Gasoline Price Changes and the Petroleum Industry (2011), 15 U.S.C. 2801
How does a fuel broker earn its commission?
It depends on whether the broker owns the fuel. A broker that buys and resells, acting as principal, earns the spread: the delivered sell price minus the product cost and the freight, measured in cents per gallon. A broker acting as agent only arranges the sale and is paid a fee or commission, per gallon or per load.
Is on-site fueling cheaper than bulk tank delivery?
Per gallon, usually not: on-site fueling carries a higher price because the service is in it, while bulk delivery buys in larger drops. But bulk delivery needs a tank and installation, plus containment above federal SPCC thresholds or where state tank rules require it, and you hold the inventory risk. Bulk tends to win on steady, concentrated volume; on-site fueling where equipment is scattered or cannot come to fuel.
Sources: On-site fueling vs bulk tank delivery, 40 CFR 112.1: SPCC thresholds