How Ontario Construction Companies Are Eliminating Fuel Station Runs

The Real Cost of Fuel Station Runs

Most site superintendents know fuel runs cost time. Most do not know how much.

A typical mid-sized Ontario construction site running yellow iron and gen-set load fuels 3 to 5 times per week through one of the three usual methods: a labourer driving a company pickup with jerry cans to the nearest station, a crew member gassing up a service truck during their lunch hour, or an emergency callout to a local distributor when the on-site bulk tank runs dry.

The math on the jerry-can workflow alone:

• Drive to station + fill jerry cans + drive back: 60 to 90 minutes
• Walk the site dispensing into equipment: 20 to 40 minutes
• Total per run: 80 to 130 minutes
• Frequency: 3 to 5 runs per week
• Weekly labour hours lost: 4 to 11 hours
• Annualized at $40/hour loaded labour: $8,000 to $22,000 per site per year

That is the labour cost only. It does not count:

• Equipment downtime when a piece of yellow iron sits idle waiting for fuel (industry rental rates run $75 to $250 per hour depending on equipment class)
• Pickup wear and fuel cost of the run vehicle itself
• Spill liability every time fuel transfers from jerry can to equipment in an unsealed pour
• Fuel theft and shrinkage from on-site bulk tanks (industry estimate: 3% to 7% of stored volume)
• Schedule slip when a generator-down event on a critical-path day cascades into delays in adjacent trades

The labour line is the easiest one to see. The equipment-time and schedule-slip costs are the ones that actually decide whether a project clears margin.

How On-Site Fuel Delivery Actually Works

The mechanics are simpler than most superintendents expect.

Step 1: Site walk and fuel plan. A delivery operator visits your site (or reviews drawings) and confirms what equipment runs where, expected daily burn rate, and access constraints. From there, you get a recommended cadence (daily, three times a week, weekly, or on-call) and a recommendation on whether a portable on-site bulk unit makes sense for your site duration.

Step 2: Scheduled delivery before crews arrive. TSSA-certified delivery technicians fuel every piece of equipment in place during a designated window. Most sites schedule fueling between 4 AM and 6 AM so equipment is topped off before the first hammer swings. For 24/7 sites (data centers, tunneling, infrastructure projects with continuous gen-set load), windows are scheduled around shift changes.

Step 3: One report per site. Every fill is logged by equipment ID, fuel grade, litre count, and timestamp. One consolidated invoice rolls up multiple sites if you are a GC managing several active builds. Cost-coding by job number is supported, which means your accounting reconciles fuel against project budget without manual receipt entry.

The result for a site superintendent: zero fuel-runs to coordinate, zero jerry-can liability, zero "where is the diesel" calls at 7 AM on a Monday.

What Equipment Gets Fueled On-Site

The list is broader than most contractors expect. On a typical mid-sized site, on-site delivery fuels:

• Yellow iron: excavators, dozers, skid steers, wheel loaders, telehandlers, compactors, dump trucks
• Site lighting and power: light towers, generator sets (5 kW portable through 500 kW prime power)
• Specialty equipment: crane carriers, paving and milling equipment, mobile concrete batching, pumps
• Support fleet: pickups, mobile mechanic trucks, supervisor vehicles, water trucks
• Tier 4 Final equipment requiring DEF: Most diesel equipment manufactured after 2014 requires bulk DEF (diesel exhaust fluid) on roughly a 1:50 ratio against diesel burn. We deliver DEF on the same visit as the diesel.

If it runs diesel, gasoline, or needs DEF, it gets fueled in place. The only equipment that does not fit the model is a vehicle that physically leaves the site every shift (a delivery pickup, a long-haul tractor) — and even those usually fuel at the yard before deployment.

What This Looks Like in Practice — A Composite Site Profile

The example below reflects a typical mid-sized GTA infrastructure project and is composed from common Refuel Mobile customer outcomes. Specific project names and figures vary by site.

The Site

• Project type: Site servicing for a multi-family build, GTA
• Duration: 26 weeks
• Equipment on-site: 1 excavator (Tier 4 Final), 2 skid steers, 1 telehandler, 1 light tower, 1 50 kW generator, 2 supervisor pickups
• Weekly diesel burn: ~1,800 litres
• Weekly DEF requirement: ~36 litres
• Old workflow: Labourer pickup with jerry cans, 4 station runs per week

The Switch

The site superintendent moved fueling to a 4 AM Monday/Wednesday/Friday delivery cadence with a 1,000-litre MyTank portable unit installed for buffer capacity. DEF was added to the same delivery run.

The Result Across the 26-Week Project

The recovered margin number does not include the per-litre cost difference between jerry-can station-pump fuel and on-site bulk delivery, which on this site added another ~$0.18 per litre savings, or roughly $8,400 over the project.

Total recovered margin across the project: ~$22,900 on a workflow change that took the site superintendent two phone calls to set up.

When On-Site Delivery Makes Sense for Your Site

The economics are not universal. On-site fuel delivery typically wins on:

• Sites with 30+ days of duration (one-week sites are usually better served by jerry cans or a one-off callout)
• Sites running 3+ pieces of yellow iron (the math compounds with equipment count)
• Sites with continuous gen-set or light-tower load (24/7 sites cannot afford a fuel-out event)
• Multi-site GCs where consolidated billing eliminates per-site reconciliation overhead
• Tier 4 Final equipment where DEF supply is non-negotiable

It does not always win on:

• Single-day or single-week sites without enough fueling cycles to justify the delivery cadence
• Remote sites outside active service corridors (though long-duration projects usually qualify for route extension)
• Sites with one piece of equipment burning fuel slowly (a single skid steer running two days a week is borderline)

For most Ontario commercial, civil, infrastructure, and demolition sites running longer than 30 days with multiple pieces of equipment, the math works.

The Short Version

• A mid-sized Ontario construction site loses 4 to 11 labour hours per week to off-site fuel runs
• Add equipment downtime, schedule slip, and shrinkage from unmonitored on-site bulk tanks, and the annualized cost runs $15,000 to $30,000+ per site per year
• On-site fuel delivery eliminates the labour line entirely and addresses the rest through scheduled cadence, per-equipment logging, and ULC-listed portable storage
• For a typical 26-week site, recovered margin is roughly $15,000 to $25,000 before per-litre fuel cost is even discussed
• Best fit: 30+ day sites running 3+ pieces of equipment, especially those with 24/7 generator load or Tier 4 Final yellow iron

If you want the full mechanics — equipment classes, cadence options, MyTank portable unit specs, and Ontario service area — read the Construction Site Fuel Delivery Guide.

Read the Construction Site Fuel Delivery Guide →