A bulk plant is a jobber’s own local fuel depot, a set of storage tanks that sit partway between the big terminal and the customer.
A terminal is the large hub, fed by pipeline or barge, where wholesale fuel enters a region. A bulk plant is smaller and closer to home. A jobber stores fuel there so its trucks can reload nearby instead of driving all the way back to the terminal for every delivery.
It usually pairs the two truck types. A big transport tanker hauls a full load from the terminal to the bulk plant, and the smaller bobtail trucks run out of the plant making local drops to stations, farms, and homes. Splitting the work that way keeps the cost per gallon down on short routes.
For a jobber, a bulk plant buys flexibility. It lets you hold product close to your customers, ride out a day when the terminal is jammed or down, and serve a rural area that would be too far to reach straight from the terminal on every run.
In useThe transport drops eight thousand gallons at the bulk plant in the morning, and the bobtails work out of it all day delivering a few hundred gallons at a time.
See also Terminal, Bobtail, Transport