Drilling Deep: How trucking fuel costs fell faster than pump prices

Also on the podcast: The impact on diesel of a soaring dollar

Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves

It didn’t seem possible. A study by ATRI showed that over 10 years, the fuel cost of operating a truck fell twice as fast as the decline in retail diesel prices.

But that was what the data said. On this week’s Drilling Deep, host John Kingston speaks with Mike Roeth, the executive director of the North American Council for Freight Efficiency, on how long-term trends in fuel mileage could produce such a result.

Also on the podcast, Kingston talks about a significant factor driving diesel prices down: the value of the dollar.

This edition of Drilling Deep will be the last that is audio-only. Drilling Deep will adopt a video format beginning next week and will be available on FreightWaves TV as well as on demand. It will continue to be available through various podcast platforms.

More articles by John Kingston

Drilling Deep: Truck insurance and the changes AB5 is bringing

Drilling Deep: Monthly report raises concerns about the diesel market

Drilling Deep: Getting into the business as a dispatcher

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2 Comments

  1. Adam

    Why are you telling this lie? Truck fuel prices are still out of control and shipping rates fell back to where they were 4 years ago and that includes fuel surcharge. So where are you getting your Incorrect information from? This is the second time this month I had to correct you about trucking lies you telling

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John Kingston

John has an almost 40-year career covering commodities, most of the time at S&P Global Platts. He created the Dated Brent benchmark, now the world’s most important crude oil marker. He was Director of Oil, Director of News, the editor in chief of Platts Oilgram News and the “talking head” for Platts on numerous media outlets, including CNBC, Fox Business and Canada’s BNN. He covered metals before joining Platts and then spent a year running Platts’ metals business as well. He was awarded the International Association of Energy Economics Award for Excellence in Written Journalism in 2015. In 2010, he won two Corporate Achievement Awards from McGraw-Hill, an extremely rare accomplishment, one for steering coverage of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and the other for the launch of a public affairs television show, Platts Energy Week.