Software for the yard running mobile storage tanks.

A mobile storage tank is the unit a rental yard sends out when a job needs to hold fluid on a site that has no permanent tankage. On a completion pad it catches flowback and produced water; ahead of a frac it stages fresh water and brine so the pumps never starve; during a turnaround it gives a plant temporary containment. The work itself is simple — the tank just sits there and holds — but running tanks as a fleet is not. The same unit moves between leases on heavy haul, sits idle but billable for weeks at a stretch, comes back dirty more often than not, and carries running gear and an interior coating that both wear. EquipFlow handles tanks the way the yard that built it handles them: dispatch, billing, maintenance, and return inspection on one record per unit.

Built inside Rental King, right now.

Rental King is a heavy-equipment rental yard in Odessa and Midland, TX. They run mobile storage tanks, manlifts, forklifts, light towers, generators, compressors, and water trucks on MSA contracts through the Permian Basin — 24/7, oilfield pace. EquipFlow was designed and first deployed inside that yard. Every feature was tested against their live operation before it shipped. The product runs there today.

Tanks are low-drama, high-margin units right up until two things slip: the standby days that go unbilled and the cleaning charges that never make it onto the invoice. A tank that sits on a pad for a month earns nothing for the long stretch of idle days if those days do not land on the bill, and it costs the yard real money if it comes back full of solids and the disposal goes uncharged. The return inspection is the spine here — it is where the clean-out status, the coating condition, and the valve seal get caught and turned into a charge. When dispatch, billing, maintenance, and inspection all read from one unit record, the dispatcher quotes the right standby rate, the mechanic services the valves and gear against real duty, and the bookkeeper closes the month without rebuilding what happened from memory. That single-record discipline is what keeps a tank fleet earning instead of leaking.

Mobile Storage Tank specs the rental record tracks.

Every number below is a sourced specification range. The render layer is the only path these values reach the page — they live on the unit record, not in a dispatcher's head.

Liquid capacity

170-500bbl

Liquid capacity (gallons)

7140-21000gal

Overall length

20-48ft

Overall height

7-11ft

Wall/floor steel plate thickness

0.25in

Floor drain pipe diameter

4in

Empty (tare) weight

15000-50000lb

Manways (access hatches)

4ct

How EquipFlow handles mobile storage tanks on the dispatch board.

A tank is a heavy-haul move, not a quick drop, so the dispatch board treats placement as the hard part. The board shows which tanks are on location, which are loaded and rolling, and which are due back, on the same responsive screen at any hour. The trap is the running gear and the truck: a tank on its own gooseneck needs a tractor rated for the tare weight, lights and brakes working, and a driver who knows the lease road, so the dispatcher confirms the haul setup on the rental record before the unit leaves. Empty matters too — a tank dispatched dirty from the last job, or one due back that still has fluid in the bottom, is a wasted trip, so the board flags clean-out status against the unit. Because the same tank class gets double-booked during overlapping completion windows, conflicts surface at assignment, not at the gate.

Billing mobile storage tanks — MSA, standby, and site-level tax.

Tank demand in the oilfield is almost entirely standby work, so the billing has to handle idle-but-earning time without a fight. A tank set on a pad earns its day or week rate whether or not a drop of fluid moved that day, and most of those rates are MSA-contracted. The negotiated rate lives as an override on the customer record per tank class, so a rental created for that account picks up the right number on its own instead of a dispatcher pulling a rate sheet. Standby is the default state for a tank, not the exception, and the invoice carries the long run of idle days as a clean line. Delivery, set, pickup, and the cleaning-and-disposal charge ride the same invoice. Tax jurisdiction is set on the delivery-site record, so a tank that sat on a lease in one county bills the right rate for that site. Invoices post to QuickBooks Online on close.

Maintenance on mobile storage tanks.

A storage tank has no engine, so its service clock runs on rental duty rather than fuel burn, but the discipline is the same as any hour-metered asset: the PM clock advances from what the return inspection records, and the maintenance module schedules the next service against real time on rent rather than a guess. The recurring interval in the spec table is the structural and running-gear service the unit comes due for. What gets serviced on a tank is not a powertrain — it is the seal and steel side: manway and hatch gaskets, drain and butterfly valves, the interior coating that keeps produced water from eating the floor, and the DOT running gear underneath, since these units tow on a public road. Work orders, parts, and service history live on the unit record, which is also where a coating or valve charge from a return inspection becomes a repair ticket.

Mobile Storage Tank return inspections.

Two inspection rhythms apply, and for tanks the return inspection is where the money is. The unit gets a structural and valve check before it goes back out, on the cadence the manufacturer and DOT running-gear rules call for. The yard's own control is the return inspection: before a tank comes off rent, the driver runs a mobile-web checklist on a phone — no app install — records the meter or time reading, and attaches required photos that cannot be skipped. The tank-specific checks carry the weight here: residue and sludge left in the bottom, interior coating condition, manway and hatch gasket seal, every drain and side valve for weep, and the running gear, tires, and lights for the haul. The return inspection ties to the rental record before the truck leaves the site, so a dispute over a cleaning charge or a dented floor has photos and a timestamp behind it.

Common mobile storage tank classes in the field.

The product, the same way it runs for mobile storage tanks.

The sections below are the EquipFlow modules that matter most when running mobile storage tanks — each links to the full feature detail.

Operator guides for running mobile storage tanks.

Field-tested playbooks that go deeper on pricing, dispatch, billing, and maintenance for fleets like this.

• Equipment Rental for Oilfield Operations →
• How to Bill for Equipment on Standby →
• Dewatering Pump Rental Guide →
• Managing Recurring Rental Customers →

What you give up running mobile storage tanks in EquipFlow.

EquipFlow is a web app, so the return inspection needs a signal to load. On a remote lease with no coverage, the driver cannot complete the mobile inspection at the site; most yards run the inspection at the yard on return instead, which means the clean-out photos and the meter reading land later than ideal. There is no built-in fluid-level or tank-monitoring telematics today, so volume and fill data from a third-party sensor is not pulled automatically — the tank's status is captured at inspection. And the rate logic is built around the standby-heavy, MSA model the oilfield runs on; a yard with an unusual billing structure should bring it to the demo to be scoped honestly.