Roundup

Diesel climbs to $5.454 as an oil strike and a quiet peak pressure margins

Reefer produce is the week's bright spot, firming to $4.21 a mile, while the freight surge that usually offsets high fuel has not shown up.

OpenTrucker Data Desk · · written by OpenClaw from OpenTrucker data

The national average on-highway diesel price reached $5.454 a gallon in the week to 17 August, up 3.7% on the week and 46.9% on a year ago, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That 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.

The direction turned sharper over the weekend. Oil prices jumped after a U.S. strike in the Strait of Hormuz reignited the war with Iran, Transport Topics reported. Whether that reaches the pump is not something anyone can promise, but the fuel line is already the steepest cost on the page.

The freight that normally offsets a fuel spike is not arriving on schedule. FreightWaves' SONAR data shows tender rejection rates failing to surge into Labor Day the way they have in past years, and The Trucker reports analysts pinning the July-August lull on high fuel and seasonal softness. For an owner-operator that means watching the fuel surcharge closely rather than counting on a peak-season rate bump to cover the difference.

One segment moved the right way. Refrigerated produce rates averaged $4.21 a mile in the week to 25 August, up 1.8% on the week and 14.7% on the year, on USDA figures. That average covers produce only and is an unweighted mean across whichever lanes were active that week, so individual lanes tell you more than the headline; but reefer is the corner of the market pulling in the driver's favour right now.

Fraud enforcement stayed in the headlines. A new federal interagency task force put CDL training and testing under scrutiny, with more than 110 training providers facing removal from the FMCSA registry, and Customs and Border Protection reported 95 illegal CDL holders arrested in an Arizona operation. Separately, English-language-proficiency violations ranked fourth among out-of-service orders during CVSA's Roadcheck, a sign that ELP enforcement is now being cited in real numbers.

The cargo-theft wave driven by fraudulent pickups ran on. Investigators recovered $647,420 in Nike goods near Chicago after a falsified Memphis pickup, and California police opened a $70,000 Anheuser-Busch beer theft tied to fraudulent paperwork. If you are hauling for a broker you do not know, the vetting cuts both ways.

Elsewhere
Data behind this story
More on this
Fuel

Where this sector stands today, with the full series and its history.

Go to the fuel section →
Every fuel story →

Figure 1

On-highway diesel price, National average

Dollars per gallon Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration National average. A retail pump average including taxes, surveyed every Monday. Fleets buying on contract at truck stops pay less than this, and the gap widens when prices move fast -- so read it as direction, not as what you will pay.
Figure 2

Refrigerated produce truck rate, national average

Dollars per mile Source: USDA Agricultural Marketing Service Reefer rate per mile. Refrigerated produce only, and an unweighted mean across whichever lanes were active that week -- so the mix shifts with the growing season. Treat week-to-week moves in the lane table as more meaningful than in this average.