The fuel leaps 29 cents to an average of $5.027 a gallon in California, while gasoline rises 14.7 cents to $4.099.By Ronald D. White, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 28, 2008

Fuel prices skyrocketed to fresh records, the Energy Department said Tuesday, as high oil prices collided with the traditional Memorial Day weekend drive-fest.

The U.S. average price for self-serve regular gasoline hit $3.937 a gallon, up 14.6 cents from the week before, according to an Energy Department survey conducted Monday but released a day late because of the holiday. In California, a 14.7-cent increase pushed the average to $4.099 a gallon.

Diesel was even more expensive, leaping 29 cents to an average of $5.027 a gallon in California and 22.6 cents to $4.723 nationwide.

Freddie Chulo, a California trucker hauling a load of paint from Santa Ana to Yucaipa, said the first diesel price he saw Tuesday was $5.09 a gallon for credit card purchases. (more…)

5/27/2008 10:00:00 AMHigh Fuel Prices Driving Companies Out of Business

Thousands of U.S. truckers unable to make money because of rising fuel prices are selling their trucks, in what may be the biggest cut in the U.S. trucking fleet since trucking deregulation in 1980, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

More than 45,000 vehicles - about 3% of the U.S. trucking fleet - have been taken out of service since early last year, the Times said, citing America’s Commercial Transportation Research Co., based in Columbus, Ind. (more…)

5/19/2008Truckload and less-than-truckload carrier Jevic Transportation said Monday it is discontinuing operations, due to soaring fuel costs and a weak economy.

“The current high fuel costs, economic downturn, increasing insurance costs, and tightening credit markets have made this decision necessary,” Chief Executive Officer David Gorman wrote in a note to customers on the company’s Web site. (more…)

By JIM NORMAN
Published: May 18, 2008

The New York Times

FOR drivers who would rather cover miles without increasing the country’s need to import Middle East oil, biodiesel is an attractive proposition. Ideally, such an alternative for petroleum-based diesel fuel would take full advantage of the diesel engine’s thrifty operation without using nonrenewable resources.

But even as the price for petroleum-based diesel fuel approaches $4.60 a gallon in New York, the attractiveness of the biodiesel alternative remains elusive. Biodiesel prices vary depending on the supply and price of the plant-based oils that go into biodiesel.

In the same way that commercially available ethanol is mixed with gasoline, most of what is sold as biodiesel is a combination of plant-based fuel and conventional petroleum diesel fuel. In the United States, commercial biodiesel is generally sold as a blend with petrodiesel in concentrations of 5 percent or 20 percent, called B5 or B20. (more…)

Their massive vehicles’ low mpg weighs down the bottom line, spurring cultural and technological shifts.By Ken Bensinger, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 17, 2008

If you think gas is expensive, be thankful you’re not a trucker. Filling up their 18-wheel, 80,000-pound leviathans can cost more than $1,300 these days.

Because of short supply, the price of diesel has gone up more than twice as much as gasoline in the last year, reaching a U.S. all-time high this week of an average of $4.33 a gallon. With little hope of a near-term decline — oil futures rose $2.17 to settle at a record $126.29 a barrel Friday — the run-up is causing panic and prompting radical cultural and technological shifts in the struggling trucking industry.

Instead of obsessing over chrome trim or the latest cab amenities to ease life on the road, truck owners and operators who are fed up with getting 5 miles per gallon are delving into long-ignored subjects such as aerodynamics, cruising speeds and tire efficiency. (more…)

By Erik N. Nelson
Oakland Tribune
Article Launched: 05/14/2008 02:10:06 PM PDTTraffic congestion on Bay Area freeways in 2007 hit its highest level since peaking in 2000, transportation officials announced Wednesday, but tie-ups diminished on some of the area’s busiest corridors.

Motorists on the region’s freeways collectively endured 161,700 average weekday hours of delay during morning and afternoon commutes. That number was exceeded only during the dot-com boom at the beginning of the decade, when there was 177,600 hours of delay.

Interstate 80 from state Highway 4 in Hercules to the Bay Bridge remained the area’s worst-congested freeway segment in the annual top-10 list released Wednesday by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the state’s transportation department, Caltrans. (more…)

Wednesday, May 14, 2008 - 2:23 PM PDT
Portland Business Journal Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, in renewing calls for what will likely become sweeping sustainability and transportation initiatives that he’ll introduce throughout the year, sought support from about 500 business leaders Wednesday in downtown Portland.

Specifically, Kulongoski, who’s convened high-level committees to devise legislation related to roads and global warming, said businesses need to be ready for effects from climate change. The state will experience more frequent and severe storms, yet suffer from shrinking mountain snowpacks that could bring both more severe spring flooding and reduced summer water supplies.

At the same time, if the state’s transportation system doesn’t change by 2025, the number of vehicle hours trucks spend on the road could increase by 54 percent. The resulting bottlenecks could bring economic losses exceeding $800 million annually. (more…)

Trucking firm adds 65 trucks, 80 trailers
Memphis Business Journal - by Trey Heath Staff writerKnight Transportation, Inc., has implemented a refrigerated delivery service in Memphis with the addition of 65 new trucks and 80 refrigerated trailers, an estimated investment of $11.3 million. The new service will add 60 new employees.

The expansion adds to Knight’s already substantial Memphis fleet of 174 dry trucks and 200 trailers.The Phoenix-based trucking company now operates almost 240 trucks and 280 trailers through its Olive Branch facility.

“Every major metropolitan city, you have a Sam’s and you have a Wal-Mart, yet they are owned by the same owner but they offer two different types of products to customers,” says Bo Brigman, manager for Knight’s Memphis division. “Knight does the same thing. We offered dry (delivery), but we were running into customers that would say, ‘Man, I wish you could offer refrigerated trucks.’ ” (more…)

By Dave Hannon — Purchasing, 5/14/2008 9:54:00 AMWhile many shippers struggle to cope with sky-high diesel fuel prices, the logistics industry is literally watching diesel tags eat away its margins. As diesel prices hit a new record high this week of $4.33/gallon, according to the Energy Information Administration, several major logistics firms are taking dramatic steps for both short-term and long-term diesel price relief.

UPS this week ordered 200 hybrid electric vehicles, making it the largest commercial order of such trucks by any company–in addition to another 300 compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles for its U.S. delivery fleet to be implemented in 2009. The 500 additional vehicles will expand the UPS alternative fuel fleet to 2,218 low-carbon vehicles.

“Trucking companies are getting squeezed at both ends — by fuel costs and the fact that high gasoline costs are hurting consumers,” says analyst Lee Klaskow of Longbow Research in a Reuters report. “Smaller trucking companies in particular face extremely stiff headwinds.” (more…)

Wednesday, May 14, 2008; Posted: 04:49 PMMay 13, 2008 (Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) — – Talk about pain at the pump. Since 2000, the average price of a gallon of diesel in Mississippi has gone from $1.45 to $4.06.

It’s a big jump for a semi-truck that gets about five to seven miles per gallon.

“I think it’s going to affect the business overall,” said Jerry Scruggs, owner of Tupelo Transfer Inc., a trucking company that has been in town since 1979. “I think it’s going to weed out a lot of truckers, a lot of independent truckers.” (more…)