Diesel climbs past $5.45 as the week's freight news runs to the border

The national average diesel price was **$5.454 a gallon** in the week to 17 August, up 3.7% on the week and up 46.9% on a year ago, on the Energy Information Administration's Monday pump survey. It is a retail pump average including taxes; fleets buying on contract at truck stops pay less, and the gap widens when prices move fast, so read it as direction rather than as what you will pay. Either way, fuel is the cost line that has moved hardest this year, and it moved up again.

Against that, the load side stayed soft. Every freight-rate index the site tracks fell in July on the Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price index, dry van truckload by 1.3% and less-than-truckload by 4.6%. Those are indices, not dollars per mile -- they track change from a base period and blend contract with spot work, so they turn later and more gently than the spot market. The national produce reefer average was $4.14 a mile in the week to 18 August, down 1.0%; that figure is produce only and an unweighted mean across whatever lanes ran, so the lane table tells you more than the average does.

And the lane table points at the border. The lowest-paying reefer lane in the week to 18 August was Mexico crossings through South Texas to Los Angeles at $2.06 a mile -- a 1,600-mile haul for a mid-$3,000 load. That is also where the week's enforcement news clustered:

- Customs and Border Protection found roughly $9.5M in suspected methamphetamine hidden in a detergent shipment during secondary inspection at the Roma International Bridge, FreightWaves reported.

- Border Patrol found 20 people inside a trailer at an Edinburg, Texas truck stop on 20 August and took the driver into custody, FreightWaves reported.

Neither changes the rate, but both mean longer secondary-inspection odds on lanes that already pay the least. If you run South Texas produce, build the delay into the schedule.

Elsewhere:

- Hankook's new truck-tire plant in Clarksville, Tennessee is running at 30% of capacity after starting up in May, Transport Topics reported -- more domestic tire supply as it ramps.

- XPO had its debt rating upgraded by S&P to one notch below investment grade, FreightWaves reported -- a health signal for one of the larger LTL carriers.

- APM Terminals Elizabeth ordered 96 electric terminal trucks, one of the larger port-electrification orders to date, The Trucker reported.

And after 38 years, the annual Make-A-Wish trucker convoy that has raised over $10 million is at risk of cancellation unless it finds a new home, Land Line reported.