Water weighs 1 tonne per 1,000 litres.
Petrol weighs .75 tonne per 1,000 litres. (Motor spirit) *
Diesel weighs .8 tonne per 1,000 litres. (Distillate) *
Fuel tankers require (IIRC) 5% ullage.
Typically a six axle tanker will be 38-43 k litres, allowed to gross 45tonne. (In Australia) UK gross weights would be in a similar region. A 38,000 litre tank would not physically fit on a rigid chassis. 20,000 litre tanks would be fitted to three or four axle chassis, for a (max) net weight of 16 tonne.
*Approximate, depending on blend.
Fuel tankers require (IIRC) 5% ullage.
Maybe I should have mentioned that to explain why a tanker with a max capacity of 20000 kgs can carry 20800 kgs but apparently they are the same according to our local mathematician. 
Before you load, get the Specific Gravity, it makes things so simple, you just need a dipstick, there are plenty on this forum. 
20,000 litres of petrol weighs 14,780kg at 15.6 celsius
Water is 1 to 1 or 1000 to 1000 or 26000 to 26000
Wheel Nut:
Before you load, get the Specific Gravity, it makes things so simple, you just need a dipstick, there are plenty on this forum.
20,000 litres of petrol weighs 14,780kg at 15.6 celsius
Water is 1 to 1 or 1000 to 1000 or 26000 to 26000
hahaha, I wasn’t going to mention that variable, it even varies between our countries.
Do you plug in a Scully when loading?
Star down under.:
Wheel Nut:
Before you load, get the Specific Gravity, it makes things so simple, you just need a dipstick, there are plenty on this forum.
20,000 litres of petrol weighs 14,780kg at 15.6 celsius
Water is 1 to 1 or 1000 to 1000 or 26000 to 26000
hahaha, I wasn’t going to mention that variable, it even varies between our countries.
Do you plug in a Scully when loading?
We use them if its sealed loading, normally the aforementioned dipsticks stands on the top in full ppe or on the gantry with a loud hailer.
in my days on the tanks and still today the scully is used, but in my dads time on the tanks no (60’s/70’s) ullage was known as fiddle… 
m.a.n rules:
in my days on the tanks and still today the scully is used, but in my dads time on the tanks no (60’s/70’s) ullage was known as fiddle…
The computer will not start until the Scully is plugged in. A coke bottle over the probe prevents cutout from a wet probe, if you’ve got a a barrel that tends to splash. 
99.9% of fuel work is now bottom load, here.
jakethesnake:
m.a.n rules:
in my days on the tanks and still today the scully is used, but in my dads time on the tanks no (60’s/70’s) ullage was known as fiddle…
I could tell you a few wee stories. eg If I loaded 38000 litres of spirit at night it might be showing way over that on the dipsticks in the morning. Handy Andy.
We can only pull that one off if we’re doing a milk run round farms and roadworks etc., my sort of work, multi-trailer bulk deliveries to servos and mines etc, the receiver gets the paperwork ex-terminal.
I’ve had a 5’ petrol fountain on a forecourt, I was 100 yards away, never run so fast in my life.
all due respect jts but the stories dad has told me when it comes to the f word nothing would shock me. but them days have gone… it wasn’t till I got older and wiser that I understood how we all had new bikes etc in a then poor neighbourhood …
sdu are you saying that you pumped spirit into storage… 
Star down under.:
jakethesnake:
m.a.n rules:
in my days on the tanks and still today the scully is used, but in my dads time on the tanks no (60’s/70’s) ullage was known as fiddle…
I could tell you a few wee stories. eg If I loaded 38000 litres of spirit at night it might be showing way over that on the dipsticks in the morning. Handy Andy.
We can only pull that one off if we’re doing a milk run round farms and roadworks etc., my sort of work, multi-trailer bulk deliveries to servos and mines etc, the receiver gets the paperwork ex-terminal.
I’ve had a 5’ petrol fountain on a forecourt, I was 100 yards away, never run so fast in my life.
Yeah I can Imagine. Had a few scary momments myself over the years.
m.a.n rules:
all due respect jts but the stories dad has told me when it comes to the f word nothing would shock me. but them days have gone… it wasn’t till I got older and wiser that I understood how we all had new bikes etc in a then poor neighbourhood …
Yep things have changed for sure. I’ll bet your Dad had a nice motor too.
m.a.n rules:
sdu are you saying that you pumped spirit into storage…
Mine sites is usually pumped in, either from a static pump, a portable pump or the truck mounted pump. Lots of properties, quarries etc., have overhead tanks or multiple tanks up to 2,500-3,000 litres, they have to be pumped, but servos are gravity drop.
One site we did took 120,000 litres every second day. It was pumped into transportable ISO tanks. The site had a portable pump I used to unload the back trailer, I took a portable pump to unload the middle trailer and used the truck mounted pump to unload the lead.
Another minesite had a manifold that I could hook up all three trailers to and a static pump delivered it to the tank farm. There was a priority tank of70,000 litres that always had to be filled first, dedicated to power generation then twenty 25,000 litre tanks that had to be filled from the front and work back.
Google Woody Woody Mine, we used to take them 120,000 litres every day, in 50°C heat.
mindat.org/loc-18838.html
Star down under.:
m.a.n rules:
sdu are you saying that you pumped spirit into storage…
Mine sites is usually pumped in, either from a static pump, a portable pump or the truck mounted pump. Lots of properties, quarries etc., have overhead tanks or multiple tanks up to 2,500-3,000 litres, they have to be pumped, but servos are gravity drop.
One site we did took 120,000 litres every second day. It was pumped into transportable ISO tanks. The site had a portable pump I used to unload the back trailer, I took a portable pump to unload the middle trailer and used the truck mounted pump to unload the lead.
Another minesite had a manifold that I could hook up all three trailers to and a static pump delivered it to the tank farm. There was a priority tank of70,000 litres that always had to be filled first, dedicated to power generation then twenty 25,000 litre tanks that had to be filled from the front and work back.
Google Woody Woody Mine, we used to take them 120,000 litres every day, in 50°C heat.
ffs s.d.u that blows my mind, in comparison to our regulated (and right up to a point) system I wish I could put that on my c.v … respect
jakethesnake:
m.a.n rules:
all due respect jts but the stories dad has told me when it comes to the f word nothing would shock me. but them days have gone… it wasn’t till I got older and wiser that I understood how we all had new bikes etc in a then poor neighbourhood …
Yep things have changed for sure. I’ll bet your Dad had a nice motor too.
strange you should say that jake but yep he did, in the 6 0’s it was a blue two tone Vauxhall cresta and then a couple of jags and my favourite in the 70’s was the zodiac exec 3 litre…
ffs he’s now 85 and got a auto corsa. he does let me down… god bless him…
m.a.n. rules:
ffs s.d.u that blows my mind, in comparison to our regulated (and right up to a point) system I wish I could put that on my c.v … respect
We were highly regulated and trained too. First you needed considerable driving experience, a D.G. dangerous goods) licence, not to hard but a few days in a classroom, then the training begins. You go with an experienced bloke until you reckon you’ve got it down pat, then do another couple of weeks. You start of watching and listening and end up just being overseen. Then you do three loads ex-terminal under supervision of the terminal boss. Submit all the paperwork and exam results and wait a couple of weeks for your Fuel Passport to be issued. Until you’ve got the Passport you can’t get the electronic access key for the terminal, so you’re still with a fully qualified bloke.
Once you’ve got your passport you only have access to the terminal that you trained at. To get access to other terminals you have to do the same three load under supervision for each terminal. There are only two systems in all the terminals, both very similar, one system you programme the whole truck and tell the computer when you move the arm to a different compartment, the other you programme each compartment separately. It’s all a bit of a hoo-har but, we were the highest paid drivers.
The job’s shagged now, company trucks have been taken over by contractors who pay 2/3rds of what we were paid.
good info mate , was you top or bottom loading then…?
m.a.n rules:
good info mate , was you top or bottom loading then…?
Most of my work was bottom loading, I’ve only been to two top load terminals, one in Mareeba the other in Cloncurry. I got my top load qualifications at the former.
m.a.n rules:
good info mate , was you top or bottom loading then…?
I think Dipper mentioned doing some bottom loading recently.