XENIA — Record-breaking diesel fuel prices near $6 a gallon are driving up transportation costs for trucking companies, creating expenses that are ultimately passed along to consumers across the Miami Valley and beyond.
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According to tracking data from GasBuddy, diesel fuel is priced at $5.85 per gallon.
The current figures surpass record-high prices previously set in 2022, placing significant financial strain on commercial freight operations.
Tom Milby, vice president of operations at Home Run Inc. in Xenia, Ohio, has operated the company’s fleet for more than 30 years.
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Milby said he has never seen diesel fuel prices reach current levels during his three decades in the industry.
Home Run Inc. currently operates a fleet of 150 trucks.
Milby detailed the financial impact that higher fuel prices have on daily operations across a large fleet.
“It costs about $1,000 to fill that truck up on diesel fuel,” Milby said. “So you do that every other day if you do that two or three times a week and at our operation here, we have 150 trucks. It’s a lot of cost that’s passed on to the consumer.”
Beyond fuel expenses, the overall cost of servicing trucks and maintaining vehicles is also rising.
Milby noted that freight and trucking orders typically slow down when diesel prices spike, but transport companies must remain on the road regardless of price fluctuations.
“In our business, we have to, our customer demands us to, bring the product to them,” Milby said.
With operational expenses climbing, transportation leaders are looking toward federal energy policy for potential relief.
“We were hoping maybe they would release some of the government oil reserves to maybe bring some of this cost down,” Milby said. “We’ll see what happens. We’re waiting on the government to see what they do.”
Patrick De Haan, a petroleum analyst with GasBuddy, explained that international events are heavily influencing the domestic fuel market.
“With the uncertainty over how these geopolitical tensions will continue to evolve,” De Haan said, pointing to “the potential that Ukraine is going to continue attacking Russian oil refineries. So diesel prices likely to continue trending higher.”
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