UST Management Isn’t About Tanks, It’s About Teams
By Brent Puzak
Walk into too many fuel operations today and you’ll still find UST compliance records tucked away in binders, fuel levels tracked in outdated spreadsheets, and maintenance issues relayed by phone. Others have taken a step forward with point solutions – tools that poll inventory or capture compliance data – but because they don’t integrate with the broader UST management picture, they create just as many data silos.
In both cases, everyone is doing their best, but they’re doing it blindly.
This is still the reality for much of the industry, even as regulations tighten, margins shrink, and technology has advanced far beyond these tools. Scattered data keeps teams in the dark, slows decisions, and turns small problems into costly ones, masking the tangible impact your USTs have on profitability, compliance, and performance.
The cost of that blindness? Minor issues that could have been resolved in hours turn into costly emergencies. Variance losses climb into the thousands per site, per year. Opportunities to improve uptime or reclaim fuel vanish simply because no one had the full picture in time.
The Real Cost of Data Silos
Operators know this pain firsthand. A delivery shows up short, but the paperwork “matches up.” An ATG alarm gets cleared, but the underlying issue persists until it takes a site offline. Finance, maintenance, and fuel teams all compare notes, but they’re comparing different versions of reality.
The truth is, everyone thinks they’re right but from their own limited view. Fragmented systems force teams into silos. By the time a problem is recognized, teams are reacting to yesterday’s problems instead of preventing tomorrows.
Titan Cloud’s analysis of more than 65,000 tanks shows operators using manual or disconnected methods take 40 per cent longer to find and fix variances than those on a unified platform. That time gap directly translates to lost revenue and higher costs. Variance losses alone can range from $3,000 to $15,000 per site per year.
Leaking tanks don’t just bleed fuel; they threaten the bottom line. Cleanup efforts can easily exceed six figures per site, and regulators may levy daily fines of up to $25,000 for noncompliance.
“When operators are stuck with disconnected tools, every team is looking at different versions of reality,” said Paul Lauinger, SVP of sales North America at Titan Cloud. “The fuel operators who are moving fastest today are the ones who’ve unified their data. They’re acting on a single source of truth, solving problems faster and protecting their margins in a way their competitors simply can’t.”
Tank Charts: Small Errors, Big Impact
At the heart of inventory management is the tank chart. It’s supposed to tell you how much liquid is in the tank based on height. But real-world tanks don’t behave like perfect cylinders. They tilt, they warp, and they hide welds, pipes, and pumps that throw off volume calculations.
A two to three per cent error may not sound dramatic, but in fuel operations, it adds up quickly. That margin can mean the difference between spotting a leak in hours or in weeks, or between reconciling a delivery and eating the loss. Over time, these small errors add up to significant variance and hidden losses.
Unlike traditional tank charts that rely on a handful of measurement points, digital or fine-grain tank charts use tens of thousands of data points to map the true shape and behaviour of the tank. This level of precision, measuring volume changes down to the micro-litres, provides:
- Delivery accuracy within ±0.7 per cent
- Variance detection within ±0.9 per cent
- Faster identification of anomalies such as leaks, theft or meter drift
By making tank behaviour visible at this level of detail, operators gain a much stronger foundation for inventory management. Ultimately, digital tank charts deliver more than better data. They elevate inventory precision into a core driver of profitability, compliance, and performance.
Connecting the Dots Through a Platform Approach
Tank charts solve part of the puzzle, but the real gains come when everything is connected – inventory data, deliveries, meters, compliance records, and environmental factors – into a single platform. When that happens, operators finally see what’s happening. And the payoff is measurable:
A retail chain, one buried in spreadsheets, cut delivery variance by 60 per cent and grew site-level sales by three per cent after anomalies were flagged automatically.
Another retailer reduced investigation costs by more than half by quickly distinguishing between leaks, theft, and calibration issues, eliminating costly false investigations.
Operators applying centralized alarm management cut ATG alarm-related downtime reduced by up to 75 per cent, adding an average of 8,175 liters (~2,160 gallons) sold – or $648 in profit—per incident.
By leveraging real-time data across their UST infrastructure, organizations can more accurately identify failure points that are driving up costs and risk. That visibility helps justify smarter investments in equipment, reduces alerts, improves team efficiency, and lowers both OpEx and CapEx. It also helps operators scale more quickly by codifying institutional knowledge, not just within the teams, but across regulatory regions as well.
For years, UST management has been little more than a compliance checkbox, something you had to do, not something that could help you win. That’s starting to change. With today’s unified, intelligent platforms, operators are turning compliance into a competitive edge: protecting margins, improving uptime, and even uncovering new revenue streams.
Operators using unified platforms cut compliance workloads by 50% and eliminate manual test tracking within their first year.
The Choice Every Operator Faces
As a busy fuel operator, you can keep piecing together siloed tools, accepting the cost and risk that come with them. Or you can modernize with a unified platform that delivers visibility, control, and agility at scale.
In UST management, seeing the whole picture makes the difference between running the business and letting the business run you. The operators who choose integration and real-time insight will be the ones shaping the pace, protecting margins, and defining how the industry operates in the decade ahead.
Brent Puzak brings 30 years of industry experience to Titan Cloud as a senior solutions consultant. He led environmental shared services for a global retail chain with over 9,000 locations, moving through numerous leadership positions. Brent’s diverse background andknowledge allow him to take a strategic approach to addressing complex industry challenges. brent.puzak@titancloud.com and
+1 (904) 219-7170.
