Summary
SummaryOil and gas fleet management is the practice of tracking, measuring, maintaining and safely operating every asset that supports energy operations, from crew vehicles and tankers to cranes, generators, compressors and welding machines. In this industry it means controlling a mixed, widely spread fleet, much of it supplied by subcontractors, where idle hours, fuel losses and safety gaps are expensive and hard to see.
Key Takeaways
- The fleet is more than vehicles. Generators, compressors, welding machines, forklifts and lifting equipment make up a large part of many energy project fleets.
- Running is not working. An engine that is on says little about whether a machine is doing useful work.
- Subcontractor equipment has to follow the same rules as owned equipment, or it stays invisible.
- Idling links cost and carbon. On Aramco’s SPARK project, acting on idling data cut idling emissions by 38% across 50 machines in four months.
Introduction
Ask a fleet manager on a large energy project how many machines are on site and you will usually get a confident number. Ask how many did productive work yesterday and the answer gets vaguer. Ask which subcontractor’s generator has been idling since the weekend, and someone reaches for the phone.
That is the reality of fleet management in oil and gas. Knowing where a vehicle is has become the easy part. By 2026, what separates well-run fleets is knowing whether every asset on site is safe, serviceable, actually working and accounted for. It also means being able to report fuel and emissions per machine, as operators and clients increasingly expect.
This guide explains what oil and gas fleet management covers, how it works, the main challenges and how to get started.
What is Oil and Gas Fleet Management?
Oil and gas fleet management is the coordinated control of the vehicles, equipment and fuel that support exploration, drilling, production, processing and project work. A typical operation runs several asset classes at the same time:
- Light vehicles and crew transport moving people between camps, yards and work fronts
- Cargo trucks, tankers and service vehicles carrying materials, fuel and water
- Heavy and lifting equipment such as cranes, excavators and loaders
- Stationary and light equipment such as generators, air compressors, welding machines, AC units and forklifts
- Bulk fuel tanks supplying all of the above
Many fleet tools only handle the first two groups. For an oil and gas operator, the last three are often where the idle hours, fuel losses and rental overspend sit.
How Does Oil and Gas Fleet Management Work?
Every asset is fitted with a telematics device, plus extra sources where they add value: CAN bus connections for engine and fuel data, fuel sensors for tanks and high-consumption machines, and dashcams or proximity warning systems for vehicles.
Take a generator on a remote work front. Its device reports when it is running, how many hours it has logged and how much load it is carrying. An RFID or iButton reader records who started it. The platform then judges it by load rather than engine hours, so a generator running all night at almost no load shows up as idle, not productive. If that pattern continues, or its fuel level drops suddenly with no one on shift, the responsible team is flagged with the data to back it up.
In TENDERD, all of this sits on one asset record shared by Track, Productivity, Safety, Fuel, Maintenance, Bookings and Emissions.
Key Challenges and How to Address Them
The scale of the problem is easy to underestimate. Aramco Mobility, for example, oversees more than 15,000 mixed assets across Saudi Arabia, with a large share supplied by subcontractors and frequently rented internally across projects. When TENDERD ran a three-month pilot on 35 of those assets, the first baseline showed 45% average utilization and 59 safety alerts per truck, per week. Those numbers were not visible before, and they became the starting point for setting targets. These are the challenges behind numbers like that, and how each one is handled.
1. Assets Spread Across Multiple Sites and Owners
Equipment moves between camps, work fronts and projects, and changes hands between owners and subcontractors. TENDERD Track keeps one record per machine with live location, geofence entry and exit history, and machine and operator documents. That settles disputes such as how many days a subcontractor unit was actually on site, and flags expiring certificates before mobilisation. Operators are identified automatically by RFID or iButton, so every trip is linked to a person.
2. Machines That Run but Do Not Work
Engine hours overstate how much work stationary and light equipment does. Productivity measures each type by its own definition of work: load for generators, dispensing rate for compressors, time on hook for cranes and arc-on time for welding machines. A welding machine switched on for a 10-hour shift with 3 hours of arc time is 30% productive, whatever its engine hours say. This is how underused machines are found and reassigned before more are rented.
3. Safety Risks That Require Evidence
Operator HSE standards and client audits ask for proof, not intent. Safety detects events such as overspeeding, harsh braking, phone use, fatigue and pedestrian collision warnings. It links each one to the machine, operator and location, and can capture photo or video evidence. Thresholds can be tighter inside a camp zone than on the highway, and contractor drivers are scored the same way as direct employees.
4. Unexplained Fuel Losses
With fuel dispensed from bulk tanks to dozens of machines, losses hide easily. Fuel detects sudden drops and refills, rates each event by confidence, and lets the team replay it against speed, engine RPM, location and ignition. A drop with the ignition off at night is a very different case from one recorded while the machine was working.
5. Breakdowns at Remote Sites
A breakdown far from the workshop means shipping parts and technicians out. Maintenance puts each machine on a service plan by calendar or hourmeter interval, and tracks every job through a checklist to sign-off. For a generator running around the clock, an hourmeter interval matches service to actual use.
6. Double-Booked and Unnecessary Equipment
Bookings routes every equipment request through site and equipment teams, matching units against availability, maintenance schedules and certificate validity for the full work period. A crane stops being promised to two sites, and every assignment has a record of who approved it.
7. Emissions Caused by Idling
Emissions converts engine-on time into CO2, split between working and idling. Because idling fuel and idling emissions come from the same wasted hours, reducing one reduces the other.
A GCC Example: Aramco’s SPARK Project
Aramco led the development of a major dry port in King Salman Energy Park (SPARK), a large-scale excavation project of around 50 km². The team faced four problems at once:
- No system to measure CO2
- Strict safety standards to meet
- Manual processes that slowed down locating machines
- Operational data tracked in separate places
TENDERD installed IoT sensors on the equipment and used a machine learning model to estimate emissions in real time, displayed in the project control room. Acting on that data, the SPARK team raised equipment productivity and reduced idling. Over four months across 50 machines, idling emissions fell by 38%, avoiding around 30 tonnes of excess CO2.
How to Get Started With Oil and Gas Fleet Management
- List every asset by type, including subcontractor-supplied units. If it is not on the list, it will not be measured.
- Decide what each asset type needs. Every asset needs tracking; fuel sensors and dashcams go where fuel spend or safety risk justifies them.
- Measure a baseline before setting targets. The Aramco Mobility pilot ran for three months to establish its starting figures.
- Set targets per equipment type. A generator and a crane should not share a utilization target.
- Assign owners and review weekly. Agree who acts on safety, fuel, maintenance and booking issues. The Aramco Mobility pilot ran on weekly status reviews.
What to Watch Out For
- Hardware must suit the zone. Devices used in classified hazardous areas need the right certification for that zone.
- Data depends on sensors. A machine without a fuel sensor reports an estimated total, not theft or leak events.
- Unenrolled assets are invisible. Subcontractor machines need a device installed as part of mobilisation.
- Field teams need to be on board. In the Aramco Mobility pilot, direct engagement with field operators proved critical to adoption.
The Bottom Line
Fleet management in oil and gas is less about knowing where machines are and more about knowing what they are doing. The operators getting it right measure every asset by its real work, hold subcontractor equipment to the same standard as their own, and treat idle hours as a fuel, cost and carbon problem at once.
Book a TENDERD demo to see how this works across a mixed oil and gas fleet.
Frequently Asked Questions
What assets are included in oil and gas fleet management?
Light vehicles, crew transport, cargo trucks, tankers, service vehicles, cranes and earthmoving equipment, generators, air compressors, welding machines, AC units, forklifts and bulk fuel tanks.
How is it different from normal fleet management?
Oil and gas fleets mix vehicles with heavy and stationary equipment, rely heavily on subcontractor assets, operate across large remote sites and face strict HSE requirements. Each asset type needs its own measure of work, not just location and engine hours.
Can subcontractor equipment be managed on the same platform?
Yes, once each asset is fitted with a device and enrolled. It is then tracked, measured and booked under the same rules as owned equipment.
How does fleet management reduce emissions in oil and gas?
By showing where engines run without doing work. On Aramco's SPARK project, acting on idling data reduced idling emissions by 38% in four months.
