Diesel Gas Prices in Decline for Sixth Week, Good News for Logistics

Good news for businesses with product to ship – diesel gas prices are in decline for yet another week. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), this week marks the sixth week in a row where the average price of diesel gasoline has fallen.

For the week of June 9, 2014, the average price of on-highway diesel fuel in the United States dropped to $3.89 – a 2.6 cent drop compared to the previous week. Lower gas prices are always good for businesses having to budget for supply and product transportation – every cent counts and can be put toward other facets of operations.

Still, prices are still high compared to where they were a year ago this week – this same time in 2013, the average price of diesel was four cents lower per gallon. While six weeks of decreasing prices are good, decreasing prices that remain stable would be even better for business to estimate their bottom line and plan ahead for where to allocate their budgets. In the meantime, Logistics Management reports that supply chain specialists are looking at myriad ways to deal with diesel price fluctuations:

In some cases they look for hedge diesel prices when it is applicable, shippers have told LM. This involves committing to a certain price on fuel at which pay to a certain rate at which point it is frozen at that rate for the shipper. And it also requires shippers to be focused on keeping their drivers on the road as much they can and being profitable and not in detention. Other steps being taken by shippers to combat high fuel prices include things like focusing more on utilization and efficiency by doing things like driving empty miles out of transportation networks.

[Source: http://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/diesel_prices_are_down_for_the_sixth_straight_week_reports_eia/news]