The FastDragon Fuel Dictionary

The words the fuel trade runs on, from the rack to the back office, in plain language. Each one links to the full guide when you want to go deeper.

A

Above the rack Tax: The bulk wholesale stage of fuel, before it is loaded into delivery trucks at a terminal. It describes where fuel sits in the supply chain and who handles it, refiners, terminal operators, and suppliers, and at this stage the fuel usually moves before the per-gallon tax applies. Full entry →
Allocation Supply: A cap on how much fuel you are allowed to buy. When supply runs short, a refiner limits each customer, usually based on how much they bought in normal times. It decides who actually gets product in a squeeze. Full entry →
API gravity Products: A number for how light or heavy a fuel is. Lighter products like gasoline carry a higher number, heavier ones like fuel oil a lower one. It is a quick way to tell what you are handling. Full entry →
Automatic tank gauging (ATG) Operations: An electronic gauge that watches an underground tank around the clock. It reports how much fuel is inside and warns you early if the tank is leaking. It replaces dropping a measuring stick by hand. Full entry →

B

Back office Software: Everything that runs the business behind the sale: billing, fuel tax, inventory, settlements, and the books. The customer never sees it. It is where a fuel business keeps or loses its thin margin. Full entry →
Basis Pricing: The gap between a local fuel price and the national benchmark it is quoted against. It shows what your area is doing on top of the broad market. A widening basis means local supply is tighter than the country as a whole. Full entry →
Below the rack Tax: Fuel after it has been loaded into a delivery truck and pulled away from the terminal, now sold as finished product. It is the pair to above the rack, the bulk stage before loading. By this stage the per-gallon tax has generally already been applied. Full entry →
Bill of lading (BOL) Operations: The receipt a terminal gives you when fuel loads onto your truck. It lists the product, the gallons, and the taxes for that load. Every invoice you send starts from it, so it anchors the whole paper trail. Full entry →
Biodiesel Products: A diesel fuel made from fats or vegetable oils instead of crude. It is usually mixed into regular diesel in small amounts, shown as B5 or B20 for the percentage blended in. Full entry →
Biogas Products: The raw, dirty gas given off as organic matter rots in a landfill, a manure digester, or a wastewater plant. It is mostly methane mixed with carbon dioxide and other junk. Cleaned up to pipeline quality it becomes renewable natural gas. Full entry →
Biomass-based diesel Products: The umbrella term for diesel fuels made from fats, oils, and plant matter, covering both biodiesel and renewable diesel. It is grown or collected rather than pumped from the ground, and federal renewable fuel rules treat it as one category. Full entry →
Blender Supply: A company that mixes components into finished fuel, such as splashing ethanol into gasoline or biodiesel into diesel. Because blending can create taxable fuel, a blender carries tax duties of its own. It is a recognized role in the fuel tax rules, not just a step in handling. Full entry →
Blendstock Products: A component blended into a finished fuel rather than sold on its own. Ethanol blended into gasoline and biodiesel blended into diesel are blendstocks. The finished fuel is built by mixing the base product with one or more of these. Full entry →
Bobtail Operations: A small fuel truck with the tank built onto the body. It makes local drops to stations, farms, and homes. It is the delivery van of the fuel world, next to the big highway tankers. Full entry →
BOL-to-invoice Software: The daily job of turning each loaded ticket into a correct customer bill. Freight and the right taxes get added the same day, before the margin slips away. It is core daily work in a jobber’s office. Full entry →
Book-and-claim accounting Clean Fuels: A way to credit a clean fuel even when the physical gallons cannot be traced to one buyer. The clean attribute is tracked on paper and sold separately from the fuel itself. It lets a buyer claim the environmental benefit without the exact molecules arriving at their site. Full entry →
Branded fuel Supply: Fuel sold under a major oil company's name. It carries that company's additive recipe and follows its image rules. Drivers often pay a little more because they trust the name on the sign. Full entry →
British thermal unit (BTU) Operations: A unit of heat energy, the amount it takes to warm one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. It is used to compare how much energy different fuels carry. A fuel with more BTUs in a gallon does more work per gallon. Full entry →
Bulk plant Operations: A jobber’s own local fuel depot. It stores product partway between the big terminal and the customer. Trucks reload close to home instead of driving back to the terminal every time. Full entry →
Bulk transfer system Supply: The pre-rack world where fuel moves in large volumes and untaxed: refineries, pipelines, barges and ships, and terminal storage tanks. Fuel stays inside this system until it crosses the rack onto a truck. It is the network the supply chain runs on before fuel reaches the local market. Full entry →
Buydown C-store: A payment from a maker that lowers the shelf price of an item, common on tobacco. The brand covers part of the price to drive sales, and the store reports the numbers back to earn it. Full entry →
Buying cooperative Supply: A group of independent marketers that buy fuel together. By pooling their volume they win better supply, branding, and terms than any one could alone. It lets small operators bargain like a big one. Full entry →

C

Carbon intensity Clean Fuels: Often shortened to CI. A score for how much greenhouse gas a fuel causes across its whole life, from making it to burning it. It is measured per unit of energy, so different fuels can be compared on one scale. A lower score means a cleaner fuel under clean-fuel programs. Full entry →
Cardlock Operations: An unattended fuel island for commercial drivers. A fleet card unlocks the pump, so trucks fuel at any hour with no clerk on site. It is built for fleets, not the public. Full entry →
Cardlock network Operations: A group of cardlock sites that all accept the same card. A fleet can fuel across many locations on one account and one bill, which is why national fleets rely on them. Full entry →
Category management C-store: Running each group of products in a store as its own small business. Snacks, drinks, and tobacco each get their own space, pricing, and profit target. You manage by category instead of one item at a time. Full entry →
Clean fuel credits and deficits Clean Fuels: The tokens that make a clean-fuels program work. A fuel cleaner than the yearly target earns credits, a dirtier one runs up deficits, and regulated companies must hold enough credits to cover their deficits. Credits can be bought and sold, which puts a dollar value on selling cleaner fuel. Full entry →
Clear fuel Products: Standard tax-paid diesel and gasoline, with no dye added. It is the fuel sold for highway use, the opposite of dyed off-road fuel, which is colored red to show the road tax was skipped. Full entry →
Cloud software (SaaS) Software: Software you use through a web browser. The vendor hosts it and keeps it updated, so you avoid running your own server. You reach your data from any device with a login. Full entry →
Co-processing Products: Running renewable feedstock such as waste fats and oils alongside crude oil in the same refinery equipment. The renewable material rides through the existing process with the crude, so a refinery can make some renewable fuel without building a separate plant. Full entry →
Commissioned agent Supply: Someone who runs a station the jobber owns. They sell the jobber’s fuel and earn a commission, while the jobber keeps ownership of the fuel and sets the price. It lets an operator run a site without buying the fuel. Full entry →
Common carrier Operations: A hauler that transports fuel it does not own, for hire. It moves another company’s product from one point to another and never takes title to the fuel. Pipelines and many trucking firms work this way. Full entry →
Compliance management Software: Keeping tank records, inspections, and required filings organized and on schedule. It tracks what is due and when, so an audit turns up clean paperwork instead of surprises. Full entry →
Compressed natural gas (CNG) Products: Natural gas squeezed under high pressure so enough of it fits in a tank to run a vehicle. It powers trucks, buses, and fleet cars, and is dispensed at special high-pressure stations rather than ordinary pumps. Full entry →
Cost-plus pricing Pricing: A supply price built from the seller’s real cost plus a set margin. Instead of a posted market number, you pay what they paid plus an agreed few cents. It makes the supplier’s markup visible and predictable. Full entry →
Credit and collections Accounting: The work of getting paid on time. You watch what each customer owes, set limits, and chase late accounts before they grow. In a business that earns pennies a gallon, one unpaid account can erase the profit on thousands. Full entry →

D

Dashboard and KPIs Software: The at-a-glance screen of key numbers an owner reads to see how the business is doing. Gallons, margins, receivables, and the like sit in one view, so trouble shows up without digging through reports. Full entry →
DC fast charging EV: High-power charging that fills an electric vehicle’s battery far faster than ordinary home or workplace charging. It feeds direct current straight into the battery, so a long stop can shrink to a coffee break. This is the kind of charging a station along a highway would offer. Full entry →
Dealer Supply: An independent station owner who buys fuel and sells it to the public. They run their own site and set their own pump price, unlike an agent who runs the jobber’s station for them. Full entry →
Dealer margin Pricing: The cents per gallon a station keeps between what the fuel costs it and the pump price. It is the station’s cut on fuel, and it is usually thin, which is why stores lean on snacks and drinks for profit. Full entry →
Dealer tank wagon (DTW) Pricing: A delivered price a refiner sets for fuel dropped right at a dealer’s station. It is the calmest of the wholesale prices, because the refiner smooths it to keep its branded dealers steady. The dealer pays a bit more for the convenience and the brand. Full entry →
DEF (diesel exhaust fluid) Products: A clear fluid of urea and water that modern diesel engines use to cut their pollution. Trucks go through it alongside diesel, so jobbers sell it by the jug or in bulk as a steady side product. Full entry →
Degree day Operations: A simple count of how cold a day was. The colder the day, the more degree days, and the more heating oil and propane people burn. Delivery companies use it to predict demand and time their trips. Full entry →
Denatured fuel ethanol Products: The pure ethanol that gets blended into gasoline, made undrinkable on purpose by adding a small amount of gasoline to it. The added material, called a denaturant, keeps it from being sold as drinking alcohol. Full entry →
Dispatch management Software: Planning and tracking fuel deliveries: which truck takes which load, in what order, and confirming the drop happened. It turns a list of orders into a workable day for the trucks. Full entry →
Dry stock C-store: All the non-fuel goods in a store, from chips and soda to motor oil and wiper blades. The name sets it apart from wet stock, which is the fuel in the tanks. Full entry →
Dyed diesel Tax: Off-road diesel colored red to show the road tax was never paid. It is the same fuel as regular diesel, just marked so it goes only into tractors, generators, and furnaces, not highway trucks. Using it on the road brings stiff fines. Full entry →

E

EDI Software: A standard electronic language that lets companies trade business documents automatically. Invoices, load tickets, and price files move computer to computer with no one rekeying them. It cuts errors and speeds the paperwork between partners. Full entry →
Electric vehicle (EV) EV: A vehicle that runs on electricity stored in a battery, drawn from the grid through a charger. A battery-only EV (BEV) has no engine at all. A plug-in hybrid (PHEV) plugs in and also has a gasoline engine for longer trips. A plain hybrid (HEV) has a battery the engine and braking keep charged, with no plug. Full entry →
EMV / PCI Compliance: The rules for taking card payments safely at the pump. EMV is the chip-card standard and PCI is the data-protection standard. Falling behind on either can push fraud charges onto you instead of the bank. Full entry →
End user Supply: A wholesale buyer that burns the fuel it buys instead of reselling it. Airlines, utilities, and large fleets take huge volumes straight into their own tanks. For them fuel is a cost of doing business, not a product to resell. Full entry →
Energy economy ratio (EER) EV: A factor that clean-fuel programs use to compare how far a vehicle travels on an alternative fuel against how far it would go on a gallon of gasoline or diesel. It corrects for the fact that some fuels, like electricity, move a vehicle more miles per unit of energy. It lets different fuels be measured on a fair, common footing. Full entry →
Environmental attribute Clean Fuels: The clean or low-carbon quality of a fuel or energy, treated as a thing of value on its own. It can be tracked, owned, and sometimes sold apart from the physical product. Credits and certificates in clean-fuel and renewable programs are ways of trading these attributes. Full entry →
ERP Software: A large software suite that tries to run an entire company in one system. In fuel it often means a heavy, costly setup built for giant firms. Many jobbers find it more system than they need. Full entry →
Ethanol blend Products: Gasoline mixed with ethanol, a fuel alcohol made from crops. The common blend is E10, which is ten percent ethanol. Blending is required in most of the country to stretch the fuel supply and meet clean-air rules. Full entry →
Exchange agreement Supply: A deal where oil companies swap fuel in different regions. Each lifts the other’s fuel close to home so neither has to ship across the country. This is why a branded station can run fuel that came from a rival’s refinery. Full entry →

F

Fleet card management Software: Issuing and controlling fuel cards for commercial fleet customers. Each card carries limits and records every purchase by truck or driver, so misuse is caught and billing is exact. The cards work at cardlocks and often at retail sites too. Full entry →
Form 637 Tax: The federal registration that lets a company handle fuel before the tax is added. You need it before you can legally buy or move fuel tax-free. It is the entry ticket to operating in the fuel supply chain. Full entry →
Form 720 Tax: The federal tax return where fuel taxes are reported, filed every quarter. It is how the excise tax you collected on fuel reaches the government. Full entry →
Fuel cell vehicle (FCEV) EV: A vehicle that runs on hydrogen gas and makes its own electricity onboard. A fuel cell combines the hydrogen with oxygen from the air to produce power, and the only thing out the tailpipe is water. You refill it with hydrogen at a station, much like filling a tank. Full entry →
Fuel pathway Clean Fuels: The full recipe and route of a specific batch of fuel, from raw material to finished product at the pump. A clean-fuels program studies each pathway to set its carbon intensity score. The same kind of fuel can carry different scores depending on how and where it was made. Full entry →
Fuel rebate management Software: Tracking the brand and volume rebates a jobber is owed, building them up as gallons move, and flagging when a contract is close to missing a tier. It keeps earned money from slipping away unclaimed. Full entry →
Fuel tax automation Software: Applying the correct federal, state, and local fuel taxes to every load and producing the returns. Because the tax on a load is often larger than the seller’s own margin, getting it right matters more than almost any other number. Full entry →
Futures Pricing: A contract traded on an exchange to buy or sell fuel at a set price on a future date. Buyers use it to lock tomorrow’s price today and to read where the market thinks prices are heading. It is the top rung of the fuel price ladder. Full entry →

G

Gasoline gallon equivalent (GGE) EV: The amount of an alternative fuel that holds the same energy as one gallon of gasoline. It lets a buyer compare prices fairly, since fuels like natural gas or hydrogen are not sold by the gallon. Pricing per GGE puts every fuel on the same yardstick. Full entry →
GREET model Clean Fuels: A widely used computer model for estimating a fuel’s lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions. It was built at Argonne National Laboratory and is updated as the science improves. Clean-fuel programs lean on it, often in modified form, to set carbon intensity scores. Full entry →
Gross vs net gallons Operations: Two ways to count the same fuel. Gross is the gallons as measured in the truck. Net is those gallons adjusted to a standard 60 degrees, because fuel swells in heat and shrinks in cold. Which one a contract uses can quietly change who comes out ahead. Full entry →

H

Heating oil Products: A fuel much like diesel, burned in furnaces to heat homes and buildings. Demand rises and falls with the weather, so the business runs on the cold-weather calendar and on watching customers’ tanks. Full entry →
Hedging Pricing: Locking in a fuel price ahead of time to protect your margin. Using futures or similar contracts, you trade the chance of a windfall for safety from a painful spike. It turns a wild price into a known one. Full entry →
Hydrogen Products: The lightest element, used as a clean-burning fuel that gives off only water at the tailpipe. It powers fuel-cell trucks and cars, and is dispensed as a compressed gas at special stations. It is an early, growing part of the fuel trade. Full entry →

I

IFTA Tax: An agreement that lets a trucking fleet report its fuel tax for many states on one return. The taxes get split among the states the trucks drove through. It saves interstate truckers from filing a separate return in every state. Full entry →
Importer Tax: A company that brings fuel into a state, or into the country, from outside it. Because the fuel was not taxed where it came in, the importer owes the tax on it. It is one of the parties the tax rules hold responsible for paying. Full entry →
Indirect land use change Clean Fuels: The extra emissions that show up when using crops for fuel pushes farming onto new land elsewhere. Clearing land to replace those crops can release stored carbon. Clean-fuel programs add an estimate of this effect into a crop fuel’s carbon score. Full entry →

J

Jet fuel Products: A kerosene-based fuel made for aircraft turbine engines. It is a light, clean-burning product held to tight quality and safety standards, sold mostly to airlines and airports rather than the retail market. Full entry →
Jobber Supply: A wholesale fuel distributor. The jobber buys fuel by the truckload at the terminal and resells it to stations, fleets, and farms across a region. It is the link that carries fuel from the refiner’s terminal to the local pump. Full entry →

K

Keep-full Operations: A delivery plan where the supplier, not the customer, decides when to fill the tank. They watch the tank and top it off before it runs low. Homeowners on heating oil and propane like it because they never have to think about ordering. Full entry →
Kerosene Products: A light, clean-burning fuel used for heating, jet engines, and some lamps and stoves. It sits between gasoline and diesel in weight, and is sometimes dyed to show no road tax was paid. Full entry →

L

Lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions Clean Fuels: The total greenhouse gas a fuel causes across its entire life, not just at the tailpipe. It counts growing or drilling the feedstock, processing it, moving it, and burning it. This full-life view is the basis for scoring fuels under clean-fuel programs. Full entry →
LIFO / FIFO Accounting: Two ways to decide which gallons counted as sold first for the books. LIFO counts the newest fuel as sold first, FIFO the oldest. When prices swing, the choice changes your reported cost and your taxable profit, even though the fuel is the same. Full entry →
Lifting Supply: Loading fuel onto your truck at the terminal rack. The moment you lift, you own the fuel and the cost clock starts. Jobbers talk about lifting the way a store talks about buying stock. Full entry →
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) Products: Natural gas chilled until it turns to a liquid, which shrinks it enough to ship and store in bulk. Kept very cold in insulated tanks, it fuels heavy trucks, ships, and areas a pipeline does not reach. Full entry →
Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) Clean Fuels: California’s program that pushes transportation fuels to get cleaner over time. It sets a yearly limit on the carbon intensity of fuel sold in the state. Oregon and Washington run their own equivalents, called Clean Fuels Programs. Full entry →
Loyalty program Software: A white-label rewards program that carries the operator’s own brand across fuel and inside sales. Customers earn and redeem at the operator’s sites, and the operator keeps the customer data instead of renting a chain’s card. Full entry →
LUST fee Tax: A small charge on each gallon that pays to clean up leaking underground tanks. The letters stand for leaking underground storage tank. It is a cost the whole industry shares to fix contamination. Full entry →

M

Margin leak Accounting: The small, quiet losses that drain a thin per-gallon profit. A mispriced load here, an unbilled delivery there, a missed tax or a little shrink. Any one is minor, but together they decide whether a year makes money. Full entry →
Marine fuel Products: Fuel that powers ships, also called bunker fuel. It ranges from light distillates much like diesel to heavy, thick residual oils burned by large ocean vessels. It is sold and taxed under its own set of rules. Full entry →
Month-end close Accounting: The monthly routine of squaring the books. You reconcile fuel, cash, and accounts so the records match what really moved. A clean close is how you know your real numbers before making next month’s decisions. Full entry →
Motor fuel excise tax Tax: The per-gallon tax on highway fuel. Someone in the supply chain collects it and passes it to the government to pay for roads. On most loads it is larger than the seller’s own margin, so handling it correctly matters. Full entry →
Motor fuel tax bond Tax: A guarantee that a fuel seller will hand over the taxes it collects. An insurer backs the promise, and the state can claim against it if the seller fails to pay. States require it before they will license you to sell fuel. Full entry →
Multi-entity accounting Accounting: Bookkeeping that keeps several companies separate while letting you see them together. Operators often run more than one legal company. This keeps each one’s books clean and still shows the whole picture in one view. Full entry →

N

NAXML Software: The shared data format behind convenience store pricebooks. It lets the register, the back office, and suppliers pass item and price files back and forth without custom translation. It is the common language of c-store data. Full entry →

O

Octane Products: A rating for how well a gasoline resists knocking, the early firing that can harm an engine. Higher octane resists it better. That is the real difference between regular, midgrade, and premium at the pump. Full entry →
OPIS Pricing: A daily price report the fuel trade treats as the standard. Short for Oil Price Information Service, it publishes terminal rack prices that buyers and sellers price their deals against. When a contract says it follows the rack, it usually means OPIS. Full entry →

P

POS (point of sale) Software: The register and software that ring up sales in a store. A good one feeds the pricebook and the back office automatically, so sales, prices, and inventory all stay in step. Full entry →
Position holder Tax: The company that owns fuel sitting in a terminal. Because it holds that fuel, it is the one on the hook for the tax when the fuel crosses the rack onto a truck. Full entry →
Pricebook C-store: The master list of every item a store sells, with its cost and its retail price. It drives the registers and the margins. When the pricebook is wrong, the store loses money on every sale of that item without knowing it. Full entry →
Propane (LP-gas) Products: A fuel that is a gas in open air but stored as a liquid under pressure. It heats homes, runs farm equipment and forklifts, and fuels grills. It travels in its own pressurized trucks and tanks, separate from gasoline and diesel. Full entry →

R

Rack Supply: The loading station at a fuel terminal where trucks fill up. It is also where the wholesale price is set and the tax is applied. To buy at the rack is to buy fuel right at this point. Full entry →
Rack price Pricing: The wholesale price a terminal posts for a truckload of fuel. It is set by product and updated every day. This is the price a jobber actually pays to fill its trucks, so it is the base of a jobber’s whole cost. Full entry →
Real estate management Software: Tools for the property side of a fuel business. Many operators own their sites and lease them to dealers or tenants, or rent the places they run. The software tracks leases, who owes rent, and renewal and escalation dates, so each site’s property income and costs stay visible alongside the fuel. Full entry →
Reconciliation Accounting: Checking two records against each other to catch trouble early. Tank readings against sales, or the bank against the books. Gaps point to loss, theft, or error while they are still small enough to fix. Full entry →
Refiner Supply: A company that turns crude oil into finished products like gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. It sits at the top of the supply chain, where raw crude becomes the fuel everyone downstream buys and sells. Its refineries feed the pipelines and terminals the rest of the trade draws from. Full entry →
Regulated party Clean Fuels: The company a clean-fuels program holds responsible for meeting its rules. It is usually the producer or importer that first brings a fuel into the state market. That party must track its fuels, report them, and hold enough credits to cover any deficits. Full entry →
Renewable diesel Products: A diesel made from fats and oils that comes out chemically the same as regular diesel. Because it matches the spec, it can replace diesel fully, with none of the blend limits that hold biodiesel back. Full entry →
Renewable energy certificate (REC) Clean Fuels: A certificate proving that a set amount of electricity was made from a renewable source like wind or solar. It carries the clean attribute of that power and can be sold on its own. Buyers use RECs to show their electricity use is backed by renewable generation. Full entry →
Renewable natural gas (RNG) Products: Pipeline-quality natural gas made from rotting organic matter instead of drilled from the ground. Methane given off by landfills, dairy manure, and wastewater is captured and cleaned up until it matches regular natural gas, so it can run the same engines and burners. Full entry →
Renewable propane Products: Propane made from fats, oils, and other renewable feedstocks instead of from crude oil and gas. It is chemically the same as regular propane, so it burns in the same tanks, furnaces, and forklifts with no change. Full entry →
Reseller Supply: A wholesale buyer that resells fuel without changing it. Jobbers and distributors are resellers. They sit between the refiner and the end customer, earning their keep by moving and financing the fuel. Full entry →
RINs / RFS Compliance: The federal program that requires renewable fuels to be blended into the supply, and the credits that track it. RINs are the credits earned by blending. RFS is the rule behind them. Together they put a real dollar value on blending ethanol and biodiesel. Full entry →
Route optimization Software: Software that plans the smartest order for deliveries. It trims miles and driving time while making sure every tank gets served on time. Fewer miles means lower cost on every gallon delivered. Full entry →

S

Scan data C-store: Item-by-item sales a store sends to product makers to earn rebates, most common with tobacco. The maker pays for proof of what sold, so accurate scan data turns into real rebate dollars. Full entry →
Settlement Accounting: The daily wrap-up between a jobber and a commissioned agent. Fuel sales, card receipts, rent, and commission all net down to one number owed one way or the other. It is how the two sides square up each day. Full entry →
Shrinkage Operations: Fuel or goods that go missing between what you bought and what you sold. Causes include theft, bad measurement, temperature, and evaporation. Because margins are thin, even small shrink eats straight into profit. Full entry →
Spot price Pricing: The price for a bulk load of fuel bought right now at a major market. It swings the most of any wholesale price because it reflects exactly what supply and demand are doing today. Spot moves feed straight into the rack price. Full entry →
Supplier Supply: The party that sells fuel into the chain. It may be a refiner or a company that owns fuel at a terminal. The supplier is who a jobber signs a contract with to keep its trucks full. Full entry →
Supply contract Supply: The agreement that sets where a jobber gets its fuel, at what price formula, and on what terms. It is the first deal a fuel business makes, because you cannot sell fuel you cannot reliably buy. Full entry →
Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) Products: Jet fuel made from non-petroleum sources such as waste fats, oils, and plant matter instead of crude oil. It works in existing aircraft and is usually blended with regular jet fuel. Full entry →

T

Tank truck compartments Operations: The separate sealed sections inside a tanker. They let one truck carry different products, or fuel for several stops, without mixing them. It is how a single run can drop regular, premium, and diesel at once. Full entry →
Tax-exempt sale Tax: A fuel sale that skips a tax because of how the buyer uses it, such as farming or government work. The exemption is real, but it has to be documented, or the seller can be left owing the tax. Full entry →
Terminal Supply: The large storage and loading hub for fuel, fed by pipeline or barge. It holds product in big tanks and loads it onto trucks at the rack. It is where wholesale fuel enters the local market. Full entry →
Transport Operations: A large tanker trailer that hauls roughly 7,500 gallons or more. It runs the long legs, from terminal to bulk plant or to big accounts. It is the heavy hauler, while the smaller bobtail handles local drops. Full entry →
Two-party exchange Tax: A deal where two companies trade fuel at the terminal so each lifts product close to home instead of hauling across the country. Tax rules treat it as a single transfer between the two registered parties, which decides who is responsible for the tax. It keeps the fuel untaxed until it crosses the rack. Full entry →

U

Unbranded fuel Supply: Fuel sold without a major oil company's name or additive package. It meets the same quality specs as branded fuel and usually costs a little less. Many large convenience chains run unbranded by choice. Full entry →
Underground storage tank (UST) Compliance: A fuel tank buried at a station. A leak can poison soil and groundwater, so these tanks are tightly regulated, tested, and inspected. Their rules are some of the heaviest a fuel site carries. Full entry →
Used cooking oil (UCO) Products: Waste grease and frying oil collected from restaurants and food plants, used as a feedstock for renewable fuels. It is treated and processed into biodiesel, renewable diesel, or sustainable aviation fuel instead of being thrown out. Full entry →

W

Weights and measures Compliance: State inspections that make sure a pump gives the gallons it charges for. An inspector tests the meter so customers get what they pay for. Failing one can shut a pump down until it is fixed. Full entry →
Wet stock Operations: The fuel itself, the liquid sitting in the tanks. Tracking wet stock against sales is how a site spots a leak or theft. The name pairs with dry stock, the merchandise on the shelves. Full entry →
Working capital Accounting: The cash a fuel business ties up just to operate, sitting in unsold fuel and unpaid invoices. It rises and falls with the price of fuel, so a price spike can strain a healthy company simply by making the same gallons cost more. Full entry →

Z

Zone pricing Pricing: Setting different prices by area instead of one price everywhere. A supplier or retailer charges more where competition is light and demand is strong, less where the market is tight. It matches the price to each local market. Full entry →

Know the words. Now run the business.

FastDragon turns the terms in this dictionary into a working back office: rack to invoice, fuel tax, settlements, and the margin on every gallon. Price your operation online.

See pricing Tour Fuel Jobber