Choosing a fuel management system for a mine: start from the fuel data your fleet can give
Fuel data on a mine comes at three levels, from the entry at the fill to the machine's engine data to sensors in the tank. Choose a fuel management system by the level your fleet supports today.
Answer summary
Fuel data on a mine comes at three levels. The entry made at the bowser or tank for every fill, the machine's own engine data on the models that give it, and fuel sensors fitted to selected vehicles. Choose a system that works at the level your fleet supports today, and add a level where the site needs a closer look.
A mine buys diesel to drill, load and haul, so a fuel management system is worth what it tells the site about the diesel behind each shift's work. Choose one by the level of fuel data your fleet can give today, and add a level only where the site needs a closer look.
Fuel data on a mine comes at three levels. The first is the entry made at the bowser or the tank for every fill. Next comes the machine's own engine data, on the makes and models that report fuel. The third is a fuel sensor fitted to the tank of a selected vehicle. Each fuel management system is built around one or more of them, so it pays to know which one it depends on before comparing prices.
Three levels of fuel data
The three levels are the fill entry, the engine data and the tank sensor. Each adds a different view of the same diesel, and none replaces the one below it, because each is read against the fills.
Level one: the entry at the fill
Every site already works at this level, in a fuel book, on a form or on a phone. The bowser driver or the fuel bay attendant writes down each fill as it is made.
A useful entry names the machine by the fleet number painted on it, the litres, and the machine's engine hours or odometer. It adds the pump reading before and after, the tank or bowser the diesel came from, who issued it and who received it. And it says what work the machine was doing. Written at the fill, those entries let the site manager read each shift's diesel beside its loads and hours, machine by machine. They also give the tank's stock, set against the deliveries and the dips.
SARS sets its own condition for the diesel refund. Its external policy SE-DSL-02, revision 21, effective 20 April 2026, lists mining on land among the qualifying activities. To qualify, it says, claimants must keep a detailed logbook. The policy describes that logbook as holding all diesel purchases, storage and usage. It also names the dates vehicles were filled and the qualifying activity per vehicle filled.
This level is only as good as the entry. A fuel book typed up days later gives figures that cannot be set against the shift that used the diesel. So does an hours reading copied from the line above. And a fuel book, however well kept, shows nothing of what happens between one fill and the next.
Whatever system a site chooses, this level asks it to take the entry at the bowser, out of signal as well as in it. It should also check each hours reading against the last one.
Level two: the machine's own engine data
Some machines report their own fuel use in their engine data, which a telematics unit reads from the machine. Where they do, the site gets a second figure for each machine that does not depend on anyone writing it down: the fuel the engine reports it burnt.
Whether a machine gives it depends on its make, its model and its age. Check machine by machine before counting on it. A mixed fleet will have some machines at this level and some without it.
This level gives the site something to read against the fills. The litres a machine took at the bowser can sit beside the litres its engine reports for the same days, and beside the hours and loads it worked.
A fair test of any system here is whether it names the machines that give no fuel figure. Then nobody reads a gap as a machine that burnt nothing.
Level three: fuel sensors on selected vehicles
A fuel sensor fitted in a vehicle's tank reads the level in the tank through the day. It gives the site a closer look at selected vehicles. Bowsers and service trucks that carry diesel around the site suit it. So do machines whose engine data gives no fuel figure, and the machines that burn the most.
A sensor has to be fitted and calibrated to each tank, then kept working. So it is chosen vehicle by vehicle.
What it gives is the level in the tank over the shift, for the vehicles the site chose.
A sensor reading is easiest to use when a system shows it with the same vehicle's fills and engine data.
Where to start
Start at the level your fleet supports today, which for every site includes the first. The fill entry comes first because every other figure is read against it. Engine data and tank levels mean little beside a fuel book filled in at month-end.
Then add a level where the value justifies it. That means engine data on the machines that give it, and sensors on the few vehicles where the site needs the closest look. The points under each level above are general ones, for comparing any fuel management system.
Fuel is also worth reading with the rest of the operation, the loads, hours and breakdowns that explain it. The case for that is in fuel data should explain the operation.
Fuel in Diggy
The fill entry is where Diggy starts. On a phone that keeps working out of signal, the bowser driver or fuel bay attendant records each fill. Each carries the machine, the litres, the hours reading, the pump reading and the tank it came from. A litres figure or an hours reading out of line asks for a second look before it is saved. Each fill shows the hours since the last fill, and the shift's diesel, stock and dips sit on the control room's shift grid beside its production. For the engine data, Diggy Telematics streams the engine and vehicle data of each connected machine. Where a machine's unit reports fuel use or a fuel level, Diggy shows it among that machine's readings.
Diggy is one system for the whole field operation: production, machines, fuel, maintenance, parts and people. You get the answer straight away, with its source, so you can act before the money is spent. Diggy was built around AI from the start, by Cambridge engineers. It works across everything that is connected, which is why the answer comes straight away.