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Diesel Theft

There are 2 ways that fuel theft occurs:

3rd Party Theft is when large amounts of fuel are siphoned. Often it’s conducted by organised gangs. It can occur anywhere a truck is parked: at lay-bys, truck stops, depots.

All that is required is a siphoning tube and a container to put the stolen fuel in. Organised gangs may have generators and large drums to enable them to siphon even more fuel quicker.

However, this type of fuel theft only accounts for 1% of all fuel theft.

Skimming Theft is invisible to you, yet it accounts for 99% of all fuel theft that occurs.
It’s when small amounts of fuel are stolen on a regular basis from the top of the tank.

It can simply be done with a siphoning tube and a container, and is commonly conducted by drivers who see it as a perk of the job.

For a more detailed explanation, please visit our ‘Skimming’ page.

Anti-Siphons may help restrict large scale 3rd party theft, however, they cannot prevent ‘skimming’.

This is because all anti-siphons have an inherent weakness, whereby their chambers sit in the fuel tank, meaning fuel can be ‘skimmed’ to their base. This can leave up to 50 litres of fuel exposed to ‘skimming’
on a brimmed tank.

Telematics and fuel monitoring devices may alert you to when large scale 3rd party theft has occurred, however, by the time you are alerted, the thieves and your fuel will be long gone. But remember, 3rd party theft is only 1% of the issue.

Telematics and fuel monitoring systems won’t stop ‘skimming’ because all systems have built-in tolerances to allow for natural variances. Therefore, ‘skimmers’ will simply siphon quantities of fuel which will not trigger the system, meaning the ‘skimming’ can occur undetected.