Average Price of Diesel Drops 4¢ to $3.121 a Gallon

The U.S. average retail price of diesel dropped 4 cents to $3.121 a gallon, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported Dec. 17, as crude oil prices dropped below $50 per barrel.

The drop in diesel marked the ninth consecutive weekly decline in the price of trucking’s main fuel. The price has fallen 27.3 cents during that period.

Yet diesel costs 22 cents a gallon more than it did a year ago, when the price was $2.901, EIA reported.

Average diesel prices fell in all regions of the country, led by the Rocky Mountain region, where per-gallon costs dropped 6.1 cents to $3.178 per gallon.

The smallest drop was 1.9 cents a gallon in the New England region.

Gasoline fell 5.2 cents to $2.369 per gallon. The sharpest regional drop was in the Rocky Mountain region, where prices fell by 8 cents, according to the EIA. The national average price is 8.1 cents lower than one year ago.

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Messy weather to slow down truckers and disrupt holiday travel this week

Lots of snow, rain, and wind could slow down freight movement in some parts of the U.S. this week before many drivers head home for Christmas. People catching flights later in the week to be with their friends and families should be prepared for possible delays.

Snow and Wind

Plenty more snow will fall tonight through Tuesday night in the usual trouble spots in the Mountain Prairie and Northwest regions, prompting Winter Weather Advisories, Winter Storm Watches, and Winter Storm Warnings from the National Weather Service.

The northern Cascade Range in Washington state will get hit hard again, with 12 to 36 inches of snow in the forecast for the eastern slopes above 3,000 feet. Besides the heavy snow, wind gusts could reach 45 mph at times, making travel difficult on US-97 through Blewett Pass, as well as on SR-20 through Loup Loup and Sherman Passes.

Drivers will face similar issues trying to get through the northern Rocky Mountains during the same time frame. Portions of northern Idaho and western Montana will see 12 to 24 inches of new snow with pockets of freezing rain, leading to some icy conditions. Strong crosswinds of 65 to 75 mph will accompany the snow at from time to time, blowing it around and making it very hard for drivers to see the road and other vehicles in front of them. Hauling full loads will be a struggle. Deadheading or moving light loads will be nearly impossible, if not risky.

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Peak Holiday Online Shopping Expected To Cause Delivery Delays

Delivery companies are warning shoppers to send holiday gifts and make online purchases within the next 10 days as a record number of packages are expected to be delivered.

The U.S. Postal Service, UPS Inc. and FedEx Corp. have taken extra steps to ensure timely delivery of billions of packages this holiday season, including adding staff, infrastructure and pop-up locations.

“This is our season. We’ve been doing it for more than 240 years, so we’re prepared. We prepare all year long,” said Karen Oberkrom, Dayton-area customer relation coordinator with USPS.

The Postal Service expects to deliver more than 16 billion pieces of mail during the holidays, including 900 million packages. To handle the influx, it has expanded retail hours, added 8,000 new vehicles to its fleet, expanded operational capacity with new equipment, hired seasonal staff and enhanced package processing systems to handle 25,000 packages per hour.

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Norfolk Southern Confirms HQ Move to Atlanta

NORFOLK, Va. — When Roanoke-based Norfolk & Western and Washington, D.C.-based Southern Railway merged in 1982, they created one of the largest railroads in the nation. A United Press International story written at the time stated that the decision to base the railroad in Norfolk was a surprise.

Its departure from the city 36 years later is anything but.

Norfolk Southern Corp. on Dec. 12 announced officially what had been expected for some time: that it will move its corporate headquarters from Norfolk to Atlanta.

The formal word came when company Chairman and CEO Jim Squires was heard telling a roomful of railroad employees gathered in a closed-door meeting room at the Norfolk Sheraton Waterside that the railroad would indeed be leaving for Georgia.

“We will be a better team when we are together as a team,” Squires said.

Employees are expected to move in two phases, with the first 100 moving next summer and the remainder joining them in the new headquarters by the summer of 2021.

 

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US Becomes Net Oil Exporter for First Time in 75 Years

America turned into a net oil exporter the week of Nov. 26, breaking 75 years of continued dependence on foreign oil and marking a pivotal — even if likely brief — moment toward what President Donald Trump has branded as “energy independence.”

The shift to net exports is the dramatic result of an unprecedented boom in American oil production, with thousands of wells pumping from the Permian region of Texas and New Mexico to the Bakken in North Dakota to the Marcellus in Pennsylvania. U.S. crude shipments reached a record 3.2 million barrels the week of Nov. 26, government data show.

The shale revolution has transformed oil wildcatters into billionaires and the United States into the world’s largest petroleum producer, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia. The power of OPEC has been diminished, undercutting one of the major geopolitical forces of the last half century. The cartel and its allies are meeting in Vienna this week, trying to make a tough choice to cut output and support prices, risking the loss of more market share to the United States.

“We are becoming the dominant energy power in the world,” said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research. “But, because the change is gradual over time, I don’t think it’s going to cause a huge revolution, but you do have to think that OPEC is going to have to take that into account when they think about cutting.”

 

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Volvo Trucks to Introduce All-Electric Version of VNR Model

WASHINGTON — Volvo Trucks will bring electric-powered commercial trucks to North America next year by introducing a battery-electric version of its VNR regional-haul model.

The truck manufacturer said it will first deploy the zero-emissions VNR Electric tractor in 2019 through demonstrations in California and will begin selling the vehicle across North America in 2020.

Volvo made the announcement here Dec. 11 during a roundtable discussion with industry press hosted by Peter Voorhoeve, the new president of Volvo Trucks North America.

“We are proud to announce the Volvo VNR Electric, designed to support cities focused on sustainable urban development and fleets operating in a range of regional-haul and distribution operations,” said Voorhoeve, who began his current role Sept. 1.

Volvo did not reveal the truck’s final design or its range and weight, but said the vehicle will be based on the battery-electric powertrain used in its FE Electric cabover model for the European market.

 

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Volvo Will Monetize Autonomous Vehicles Before Driver Data, CEO Hakan Samuelsson Says

Volvo has gone to unique lengths at this year’s Los Angeles Auto Show to demonstrate how tech-savvy it is. There are no cars on display at the automaker’s stand — just multicolored couches and cardboard delivery boxes hinting at its partnerships with Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Amazon Inc.

But when it comes to the future of the auto industry, CEO Hakan Samuelsson sounds relatively old-fashioned. He’s betting Volvo will make more money selling connected, autonomous cars to consumers and robo-taxi fleets, rather than taking a cut of the higher margin business of selling data-driven services inside the vehicle.

“Whatever you have in the phone, you would like to have very seamless into the car, and we will make money by making an attractive car and selling more cars, rather than trying to take a fee on the information and the communication,” he said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “That would be the wrong approach.”

Most automakers have tried to keep Google and Apple Inc. at arm’s length, hoping to keep control of such valuable data as a driver’s whereabouts, driving patterns, shopping preferences and infotainment use. The companies also have sought to forge their own commercial partnerships to sell connected services rather than let tech players including Google cash in.

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Alberta Buying Rail Cars to Ship Crude Amid Pipeline Pinch

Alberta is working to buy railcars to help ship more crude as pipeline bottlenecks have the oil-rich province grappling with historic low prices.

The province has engaged a third party to negotiate the purchases, and a deal may be struck “within weeks,” Premier Rachel Notley said Nov. 28 in a speech in Ottawa. The province’s costs will be fully recouped through royalties and the selling of shipping capacity, she said.

“Don’t mistake me — this is not the long-term answer,” Notley said. “It absolutely is not. New pipelines are the long-term answer.”

Notley’s proposal is one of several put forward by government and industry officials to boost Canadian oil prices by increasing the amount that can flow to refineries in the United States and elsewhere. Some producers have begun to curb output — and asked the government to mandate cuts ☺— after prices fell to as much as $50 a barrel below the U.S. benchmark. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took the unusual step of buying a pipeline project earlier this year to help get enough transport capacity.

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Gasoline for Less Than $2 Available in 20 States After Oil’s Drop

Gasoline prices below $2 a gallon can now be found in at least one gas station in 20 U.S. states, as the effects of the bear market in crude oil trickle down to motorists.

The lowest per-gallon retail price, $1.69, was found at a Buc-ee’s station in Denton, Texas, according to GasBuddy, a company that helps drivers find cheap fuel. The national average has fallen for seven straight weeks to $2.53 a gallon, the lowest since March.

The plunge in gasoline comes after crude futures are down a third from an October high. Global oil has wilted following Iranian sanction waivers from the U.S. and as rising output in America, Saudi Arabia and Russia raises concerns about a glut. Trade tensions between the U.S. and China have also stoked fears about demand.

“There’s generally a multi-day lag in gas prices following the daily changes in the price of oil,” Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, said Nov. 28. The Great Lakes is currently the cheapest region in the country after refineries there restarted after scheduled maintenance, he added.

Lower prices will likely save the country $125 million a day compared with what was being paid in early October, DeHaan was quoted saying in a blog post Nov. 26.

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Indiana drivers spared from new tolls because the state made enough on truck-only tolls

The governor of Indiana says that he will not impose any more new interstate tolls during his administration, in part because he has already raked in enough money from a recent truck-only toll increase to fund a whole slew of infrastructure improvements.

On Thursday, November 29, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb told other lawmakers that he will not go ahead with a plan to implement new interstate tolls during his administration. This plan would have tolled both passenger and commercial vehicles to fund infrastructure improvements.

The announcement comes just a few weeks after tolls were increased for trucks-only on the Indiana Toll Road. On October 5, 2018, tolls for Class 3 or higher vehicles on the Indiana Toll Road went up by 35%. The toll rate for passenger vehicles did not increase.

According to the Indiana Motor Truck Association, the toll rate increase bumped up the amount that truckers must pay to cross the entire 157 mile toll road from $86.60 to $116.91

The truck-only toll increase was part of a deal brokered by Holcomb called the Next Level Connections agreement. Per this deal, in exchange for the truck-only toll increase, the Indiana Toll Road Concession Company (ITRCC) is set to give state transportation officials $1 billion to use for infrastructure projects (mostly). While a large part of that $1 billion was earmarked for road construction, $100 million will be put toward a program to increase broadband access in rural communities while another $90 million will be used to build more hiking trails.

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