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"We’re growing as a company," said Mark Watson. "Our sales are up about 30 percent from last year." It’s not hard to understand why. Watson is president of Gulfstream Petroleum Services, which handles everything associated with fuel tanks – installation, removal, repairs, consulting, fuel polishing, tank cleaning, and monthly compliance inspections. "We’re a fully licensed contractor, so if you need anything related to fuel tanks, we can do it."People are becoming more and more aware of the importance of caring for their fuel tanks, especially with hurricane season on the horizon. In fact it was a hurricane – Hurricane Katrina in 2005 – that jump-started the awareness. Watson said that 10 years ago, businesses and health care facilities alike believed that as long as they could hold out for a couple of days during an outage, the power company would be able to get things working again. But they learned that wasn’t the case.
As a result, hospitals in particular began to increase the capacity of their storage tanks. "It used to be that hospitals might have a 10,000-gallon tank to run their generator," Watson said. "In some cases, they have now increased their capacity five times, to 50,000 gallons."
He went on to say that while some might not increase capacity, they might update to a more modern, more reliable system – although most people take the opportunity to do both at the same time. Watson commented, "They’ll say, ‘If I’m going to spend this kind of money, let me get the most bang for my buck and increase storage. The only time people don’t really increase storage is if they don’t have the room to do anything other than what they have."
Watson said that for those who want to increase, Gulfstream can add additional tanks and syphon them together, or if that’s not feasible, they can take a 10,000 gallon tank and go to a 15,000 or even a 20,000. "What determines that is, a bigger tank is obviously more expensive, but your major cost is all of the construction that goes along with it. Once you’ve taken out the concrete and dug the hole, buying a bigger tank is not much more expensive; so a lot of people take that opportunity to buy the biggest tank they can physically have on their property."
As important as having enough capacity is cleaning the fuel. For example, if a hospital has 40,000 gallons of storage, that fuel has a shelf life because the only time it’s used is in an emergency situation. So out of 40,000 gallons, 5,000 gallons might be used in a year, and the rest just sits there. To maintain the quality of that fuel, Gulfstream treats it with chemicals to kill any bacteria, then circulates the fuel through filters to remove any sediments or contaminants. Especially in South Florida, moisture gets in the fuel, and bacteria feeds on that, settles in the tank and becomes what is called sludge or algae, which must be treated.
Further expanding Gulfstream’s growth, according to Watson, is that the construction industry is booming in South Florida. "With all the new buildings and the hospital expansion projects, they’ve got more or bigger generators, which means more fuel tanks or bigger fuel tanks. That’s been good for us, we’ve maintained the clients we had whose fuel tanks we were cleaning; the hospitals that we’ve done in the past we’re still doing; and we’ve picked up a couple of new clients. We’re growing and doing well and we’re looking to grow some more."
One of the people who trusts Gulfstream to handle work is Luis Rodriguez, assistant facilities director of Univision Communications, Inc. "We are a telecommunications business, so it’s critical that we are up 24/7," he said. "We have six generators in our facility, and we want to make sure we are up and running whenever there’s a need or if there’s a hurricane problem."
He said he has been dealing with Watson and Gulfstream for six years, "and they do an outstanding job. He helped us with diesel tanks and he has helped me install gas tanks. I have high regard for them, the quality and service level are outstanding. We have polishing and cleaning done once a year. They are very dependable, provide excellent care. They are A-1, and it’s hard to find good people like that any more."
And that’s why Gulfstream Petroleum Services continues to grow.
