Consumers notice an increase in fuel prices every time they drive to the pump. But energy industry analysts say the current rise in diesel prices is historic – and is pushing up the value of all sorts of goods.
Diesel prices are hovering at an all -time high, forced upwards by the same circumstances that spurred the rise in gasoline.
“The price of diesel is probably the bigger headline here,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy.
Almost everything people buy is loaded into a vehicle powered by a diesel engine. Ships and barges, trains, trucks and even some planes run on diesel fuel.
Diesel hit an all-time high of $ 5.135 on March 12, according to AAA. On April 27, the price was only slightly lower at $ 5.093.
That increase has hit hard on consumer prices, said Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, noting that diesel has been a big factor in rising inflation.
It also hit truckers hard. Trucks that used to spend about $ 10,000 a week on fuel now spend closer to $ 18,000 a week.
Freight industry analysts suspect that the highly fragmented and volatile truck industry is likely to experience another severe downturn. Some even call it a “bloodbath.”
“We see when fuel has risen as much as it has over the past few months, that’s usually when we see a lot of truck bankruptcy following,” said Craig Fuller, founder and CEO of Freightwaves, an industry data tracker. .
That’s bad news for the nearly 2 million truck companies in America, most of them small businesses with only a handful of trucks.
“These small operators who essentially live off the cash flow of their truck operations are not prepared and do not have balance sheets or money positions to capture these immediate shocks to their cash flow,” he said. by Fuller.
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