Farming app detects rise in ‘suspicious’ fuel takes overnight

Levno’s tank sensors allow farmers to track fuel, milk and water levels via an app.

By Monique Steele of RNZ

Data from an app that tracks farm fuel levels show a small rise in fuel being taken from monitored tanks during the night, amid the global fuel crisis.

Palmerston North-based company Levno has sensors on farm tanks of fuel, milk and water so farmers can track their levels on an app on their phones.

The company said there had been a 13.7% increase in what it called “suspicious withdrawal events” after 10pm in the three weeks to April 1, compared to the same period the year before.

Chief executive Oscar Ellison said it was not proof of theft as such, as there could be legitimate explanations for withdrawals, such as contractors needing fuel for urgent farm work.

“I don’t want to cause too much alarm or anything, given the current situation around fuel, but we monitor… real-time data from those fuel tanks, and we have an alert that customers are able to set up around unusual timings of withdrawals.

“Between 10pm and 4am were the time periods that we were looking at, and we’ve seen an 11% increase there in some of those alert firings and also, in total a 14% increase in those suspicious withdrawal events.”

He said while they were not always huge volumes each time, they had risen to up to 350 incidents in a week.

“Obviously, people’s operations change across months, but I think when it comes to theft, people will notice the large events that happen sporadically - not very often, hopefully - where someone turns up for a trailer tank or some 44-gallon drums on the back of a ute and takes 400 to 500 litres.

“What we see is five-litre withdrawals, 10-litre withdrawals, which might be a farm worker or might be your son or daughter coming back from university holiday, and those are the kind of smaller ones that we’ve seen this kind of uptick in.”

Ellison encouraged farmers to secure their fuel tanks.

“You can put cameras in, you can put sensor lights near your tank and make sure you’ve got a lock on the tank,” he said.

Police told RNZ last week that reported fuel theft had not yet increased at that stage, but they were working with Federated Farmers and gas stations on the form of crime they said was not new.

Furthermore, limited allocations of fuel for rural distributors were also resulting in some farmers not receiving their usual deliveries and having to join the queue at the gas stations instead.

Levno technology was found on around 8000 New Zealand farms, mostly dairy, and it monitored close to 7000 fuel tanks nationwide.

The business that started back in 2012 employed a team of around 40, and had expanded into other markets, now found on 300 farms in Ireland and 200 in Australia.

It also planned to roll out its trial of monitoring feed silos nationwide later this year.

- RNZ