Wet Stock Management Market Update November 2025: Data‑Driven Fuel Inventory, Key Deals and 2030 Outlook

As new APIs, cloud platforms and fintech partnerships roll out in Q4 2025, wet stock management is moving from a back‑office chore to a strategic profit centre for fuel retailers worldwide.

Updated: 15 November 2025

What “wet stock” means in 2025 – and why everyone is suddenly talking about it

In fuel retail and depot operations, wet stock refers to all liquid fuel inventory (petrol, diesel, LPG, etc.) stored in tanks and dispensed through pumps. Wet stock management covers the full journey of that fuel: from ordering and delivery into underground tanks, through storage, leak detection and real‑time pump readings, to reconciliation with point‑of‑sale data and financial reporting. ^[1]

Specialist vendors emphasise that this is no longer just a leak‑detection or tank‑level problem. Dover Fueling Solutions, for example, describes modern wetstock management as end‑to‑end fuel inventory control, showing how its proof‑of‑concept across 10 stations uncovered around 66,000 litres a year of previously unseen fuel loss and detected four leaks that could have led to hundreds of thousands of euros in costs if left undetected. ^[2]

Titan Cloud, one of the leading analytics providers in the space, frames wetstock management as the discipline that “addresses all potential sources of variance” – meter drift, temperature effects, theft, delivery discrepancies and tank leaks – and argues that automating this process can reduce inventory variance and directly increase fuel sales at the pump. ^[3]

In short, wet stock is where fuel retailers’ profit, compliance risk and ESG exposure all collide, which is exactly why November 2025 is turning into a pivotal moment for this niche but rapidly evolving market.

November 2025: the latest headlines in wet stock technology

Several developments in late 2025 are reshaping expectations for wet stock monitoring and analytics:

1. Fuel management systems market revised with fresh 2031 forecast

A new Fuel Management Systems (FMS) Market report, published in October and updated in November 2025, pegs the global FMS market – which includes fuel retail automation and fuel storage & wet stock monitoring – at about USD 5.9 billion in 2024, rising to USD 7.8 billion by 2031. That implies a 4.1% CAGR over 2025–2031. ^[4]

Wet stock monitoring is highlighted as a core application segment alongside retail automation, digital payments, loyalty and head‑office systems, underscoring how wet stock has become an integral part of broader fuel management architectures rather than a standalone add‑on. ^[5]

2. IFSF 2025 conference puts Wetstock APIs on centre stage

In early November, the IFSF 2025 Annual Conference – “Fuelling a Connected Future” in Athens spotlighted interoperability as the next frontier for fuel retailers. Among the agenda items: an update from Titan Cloud and IFSF leaders on the adoption of new Wetstock Management APIs, part of a broader reference architecture and roadmap stretching through 2028. ^[6]

These APIs aim to standardise how wet stock data flows between automatic tank gauges, forecourt controllers, cloud analytics platforms and enterprise systems. In practice, that means easier integration, faster onboarding of sites after M&A, and a clearer pathway for multi‑brand networks to consolidate reporting and variance management across regions. ^[7]

3. East African forecourts go all‑in on digital wet stock and embedded finance

One of the most significant November announcements comes from Kenya and East Africa, where KCB Group and Pesapal have unveiled a partnership to deploy Pesapal’s Forecourt Management Solution (FMS) to more than 10,000 fuel stations. ^[8]

The platform digitally connects each pump, tank and till, providing:

Real‑time tracking of wet stock and dry stock (fuel plus shop items)
Automated tax compliance via Kenya Revenue Authority’s eTIMS system
Integrated mobile money and card payments
Tight dispenser and inventory control, including fraud and leak alerts ^[9]

Critically, the article notes that KCB will use this wet stock and transaction data as collateral for performance‑based lending, giving previously under‑banked station owners access to stock finance and working capital. In effect, wet stock data is becoming a credit asset, not just an operational metric. ^[10]

4. Digital depots and co‑op retailers embed wet stock into their back‑office

Two more November‑dated developments underline how wet stock is being absorbed into broader retail and depot platforms:

South African provider Payment24 promotes a depot fuel management suite where digital wet stock managementis a standard capability, allowing “homebase” depots to reconcile fuel dispensed at the pump with fuel leaving the tank and to automate replenishment, even on sites without automatic tank gauging. ^[11]
UK co‑operative retail software firm VME Coop highlights a Fuel Management module within its IntelliStore Back Office, which “keeps track of all wet stock within your fuel site,” monitors fuel levels, controls pumps from the cashier screen and triggers alerts when stock needs to be reordered. ^[12]

Together with the surge of Titan Cloud fuel‑analytics content in H2 2025 – including webinars on variance and tank gauge calibration and a feature specifically on “Get More from Your Wetstock Management” – this shows a clear market push towards cloud‑based, analytics‑heavy wet stock platforms. ^[13]

Five structural trends reshaping wet stock management

Beyond individual announcements, several structural trends are now defining how wet stock will be managed between 2025 and 2030.

1. From minimum compliance to margin protection

Historically, many operators invested in wet stock primarily to satisfy environmental regulators. Now, the focus is shifting to margin protection and cash‑flow stability.

Dover’s wetstock proof of concept showed that even sites operating “within legal tolerance” could still be losing tens of thousands of litres a year and risking six‑figure clean‑up and remediation costs. ^[14]
Titan Cloud demonstrates how a seemingly small 0.15% undetected variance on a site dispensing 300,000 litres a month can mean around 5,400 litres lost annually, with revenue losses easily topping €10,000 – and multiplied across large networks, potentially millions in profit leakage. ^[15]

This is driving a new mindset: treat wet stock as a P&L lever, not a compliance checkbox. Retailers are starting to justify advanced analytics and continuous reconciliation on the basis of recovered fuel, reduced write‑offs and lower investigation costs.

2. Cloud, APIs and the race for clean data

2025 fuel‑industry commentary keeps returning to one theme: data accuracy. The APEA’s October 2025 “Five global trends reshaping the downstream fuel industry” piece flags bad data as a root cause of costly false investigations and argues that integrated, cloud‑based platforms – like Titan Cloud’s – are becoming essential to clean, centralised fuel datasets. ^[16]

The IFSF conference pushes this further by codifying Wetstock Management APIs as part of its reference architecture and 2026–28 roadmap. The goal is to ensure that wet stock data can move reliably between equipment vendors, POS systems, payment providers and analytics tools. ^[17]

Over the next five years, expect:

Legacy local spreadsheets to be replaced by multi‑site cloud dashboards
Wet stock data to feed into data lakes together with payment, loyalty and maintenance data
Operators to prioritise vendors that support open standards and easy integration into their existing tech stack

3. Embedded finance and “data‑for‑capital” flywheels

The KCB–Pesapal partnership hints at a powerful new model: wet stock analytics as an on‑ramp to finance.

By using the FMS data stream to evaluate station performance and creditworthiness, KCB can offer fuel stock loans and working capital based on real‑time sales and inventory, rather than on traditional collateral. ^[18]

Combine this with:

Payment24’s digital depot platforms, which already link wet stock flows to authorisation and settlement; ^[19]
Retail back‑office systems like IntelliStore that tie wet stock directly to sales and cash management; ^[20]

…and you can see the early pieces of a broader “data‑for‑capital” flywheel:

Wet stock systems capture accurate volumes, flows and margins.
That data feeds banks and fintechs.
Lenders fund stock based on actual performance, not estimated demand.
Better finance enables higher‑throughput, better‑run sites, generating more (and cleaner) data.

By 2030, it’s reasonable to expect that many independent fuel retailers in emerging markets will only qualify for premium credit facilities if they are running certified wet stock and POS data feeds into lenders’ risk models.

4. Democratisation of smart wet stock: from oil majors to mid‑tier and depots

Once the preserve of multinationals, advanced wet stock monitoring is rapidly moving down‑market:

Payment24’s depot fuel solution targets car rental and auto‑dealer depots, providing digital wet stock management, shift management and automated bulk‑fuel ordering even where no ATG is installed. ^[21]
IntelliStore’s co‑op‑focused back office has made fuel management – including wet stock monitoring and pump authorisation – a standard module for supermarkets and convenience retailers. ^[22]
Industry blogs emphasise that even mid‑size retailers can now adopt SIR (statistical inventory reconciliation)‑driven wet stock analytics without fully automated hardware at every site. ^[23]

The direction of travel is clear: by 2030, “no wet stock analytics” will look as outdated as a cash‑only forecourt does today.

5. ESG, regulation and multi‑energy forecourts

While the 2025 conversation is dominated by data and profitability, ESG and regulatory pressure remain major drivers:

Dover’s POC results underline the environmental risks of undetected leaks and the ability of modern systems to drastically reduce fuel to ground. ^[24]
Fuel‑management vendors increasingly link their marketing to sustainability narratives, highlighting lower truck miles thanks to smarter replenishment, reduced fugitive emissions and better spill prevention. ^[25]

At the same time, forecourts are evolving into multi‑energy hubs (EV charging, biofuels, hydrogen). Standards work at IFSF around EV‑charging payments and API‑based integration hints that wet stock concepts – continuous monitoring, variance analytics, interoperable data – will be extended to new energy vectors as they mature. ^[26]

Market outlook: wet stock monitoring through 2030

While dedicated global figures for “wet stock only” are still wrapped inside broader fuel‑management categories, recent data gives a useful directional picture:

The overall Fuel Management Systems (FMS) market is forecast to grow from just under USD 6 billion in 2024to almost USD 7.9 billion by 2031, at around 4.1% CAGR. ^[27]
Within that, fuel storage monitoring & wet stock monitoring sits alongside retail automation and digital payment/security as one of the core application segments – and is widely viewed by vendors as a higher‑growth, software‑heavy sub‑category thanks to its analytics and cloud components. ^[28]

Based on current trajectories and vendor commentary (and noting this is an informed projection, not a formal forecast), a plausible 2025–2030 outlook is:

Spending on wet stock software and analytics grows faster than hardware.
Hardware (ATGs, probes, controllers) will track general FMS growth, but cloud subscriptions, APIs and analytics add‑ons are likely to see mid‑ to high‑single‑digit annual growth, as retailers layer intelligence onto existing infrastructure. ^[29]
Emerging markets lead new‑site adoption.
Markets like East Africa, parts of the Middle East and Latin America are leapfrogging straight to cloud‑native wet stock solutions built around mobile money, intermittent connectivity and multi‑party ownership models, as PesaPal’s deployment plans vividly illustrate. ^[30]
Mature markets focus on consolidation and optimisation.
In Europe and North America, where most sites already have basic compliance systems, growth will come from network consolidation, data‑lake projects and upgrades from spreadsheet‑based reconciliation to always‑on analytics. ^[31]
Wet stock becomes part of customer‑experience and loyalty strategies.
As Dover points out in its June 2025 analytics article, forecourt operators increasingly link wet stock systems to connected forecourts and e‑commerce, using reliable fuel availability and fewer pump outages as part of a broader customer‑experience and loyalty proposition. ^[32]

Taken together, these trends suggest that by 2030, wet stock monitoring will be viewed less as a niche compliance tool and more as a core layer of the forecourt tech stack, tightly connected to payments, loyalty, maintenance and finance.

Strategic priorities for retailers and depot operators heading into 2026

For fuel retailers, fleets and depot operators looking ahead from November 2025, the key question is: how to turn wet stock management from a cost centre into a competitive advantage?

Here are actionable priorities based on current developments:

1. Audit your wet stock data landscape

Map the full flow of data from tanks and pumps to POS, back‑office and head office.
Identify manual breaks (spreadsheets, emailed reports, hand‑written dockets) where errors and delays creep in.
Benchmark variance and investigation rates against industry examples like Titan Cloud’s case studies to quantify your opportunity. ^[33]

2. Prioritise cloud‑ready, standards‑based platforms

When upgrading controllers, ATGs or back‑office software, favour vendors who support open APIs and align with emerging IFSF/Conexxus wetstock standards. ^[34]
Look for roadmaps that explicitly mention wet stock analytics, SIR support and external data‑lake integration, not just basic tank gauging.

3. Connect wet stock to payments and finance

Explore partnerships with banks or fintechs who are willing to use your wet stock and transaction data for performance‑based lending, taking inspiration from the KCB–Pesapal model. ^[35]
For depots, consider solutions like Payment24 that join digital wet stock management with automated authorisation and settlement, improving control and creating cleaner data for potential financiers. ^[36]

4. Train teams to think in terms of variance and root cause

Develop simple dashboards and KPIs around inventory variance, leak alerts, slow‑flow events and unexplained losses.
Use modern analytics platforms to distinguish between controllable issues (meter drift, theft, delivery error) and uncontrollable ones (temperature, density), so investigations and service calls are targeted rather than scatter‑shot. ^[37]

5. Build an ESG story around your wet stock investments

Quantify how improved wet stock detection has reduced fuel‑to‑ground incidents, truck miles for deliveries and write‑offs.
Integrate those numbers into sustainability reporting and stakeholder communications, following the lead of vendors who emphasise environmental risk reduction in their case studies. ^[38]

Outlook: Wet stock as the quiet engine of fuel‑retail transformation

As of 15 November 2025, the story of wet stock is no longer just about stopping leaks. It’s about:

Protecting thin margins in a volatile fuel market
Feeding trustworthy data into cloud platforms, banks and regulators
Unlocking new financing models for independent operators
Preparing forecourts for a multi‑energy, highly regulated, API‑driven future

If current trajectories hold, the most successful fuel retailers and depot operators by 2030 will likely be those who treated wet stock not as a static compliance cost, but as a strategic, data‑rich asset at the heart of their business model – and started building that capability in earnest from 2025 onward.

How to Automate your Fuel Inventory Management with Kachoolie