Trucking company executive Kevin All says he has "seven trailers not working, trucks are sitting in the yard and I have men on unemployment."
All said Friday he wished ``there was some light at the end of the tunnel, but I can't see any."
Diesel fuel was at $4.39 a gallon Friday evening in Walton. It had been $4.24 during the day and $4.15 just hours earlier.
All, vice president at Kortright Center Dairies Inc., said the rising price of diesel fuel is threatening his business. The company, he said, uses its seven-truck fleet to move stone, sand and other road components.
The rising cost of fuel has a ripple effect through the economy because, as prices continue to rise, consumers see higher costs for whatever they are purchasing that is being delivered by truck.
All said, on top of skyrocketing fuel prices, the downturn in the housing market means there are fewer construction supplies to ship and consumers are starting to put the brakes on spending, which means less cargo is moving.
"We need these small trucking firms to stay in business," All said. "The train can't stop running. I have been meeting with my bankers to see if I can just pay the interest on my loans so I can hold on until things turn around."
Rudy Ballard, chief executive officer of Reinhart Home Heating in West Oneonta, said petroleum products are all traded on the commodities market and that is what is driving the market.
Gasoline, while not as expensive as diesel, is still near all-time highs in price, at about $3.35 or more a gallon in this area.
"There is no supply problem," Ballard said. "Gasoline is
See FUEL on Page 9
at a 15-year high in inventory. It is a purely speculative thing. All the big fund investors are in the commodity market. We don't have a shortage of anything."
Oneonta truck driver Glenn Knapp said "everybody talks about the high price of gas, but diesel prices are just going out of sight.''
Speaking by cell phone Friday as he was delivering a load of cleaning supplies at the Mohawk Correctional Facility in Rome, Knapp said a tractor-trailer gets just 5 to 6 miles per gallon, and, at current prices, it costs between $600 and $700 to fill an empty tank.
Knapp, who works for Shearer's Express in Oneonta, said he knows independent truckers who are going out of business and as he travels the highways he is seeing more and more big rigs parked with ``For Sale'' signs on them.
"The politicians talk about gas prices, but there is not one word about the cost of diesel and independent truckers going out of business," he said. ``I've got to start a bonfire somewhere and make people realize.
"Almost everything is moved by truck," Knapp, 60, said. "I am looking at the possibility of losing my job. I think about it every day and I am sweating bullets."
Rick Warner, owner of Shearer's Express, said, "Obviously diesel is at an all-time high and it has had a negative impact on our industry's operating results."
According to the American Trucking Association, for a number of motor carriers, fuel has now surpassed labor as their largest expense.
That is significant because more than 80 percent of communities in the U.S. get their goods solely by truck, according to the association's website www.truckline.com.
Dave Husted, owner of Husted Trucking in Mt. Upton, said the escalating fuel cost is having a major impact on his business.
"It's huge. It's just huge," Husted said Thursday. "It's cutting into everybody's bottom line and we have to pass on those costs."
Husted, who moves dairy products, said the rising cost of milk is not putting any money in the farmers' pockets.
He said the cost per mile for fuel to run the trucks is more than $1 a mile. He said the cost used to be 22 to 24 cents per mile.
Husted said he has his own diesel supply delivered to his company. The cost of a load of 8,000 to 10,000 gallons of diesel was $16,000 three or four years ago. Now a drop costs $35,000.
"We go through 1,000 gallons a day," he said. "That's $100,000 a month. It's a huge impact and the general public is going to feel it more and more as the weeks go on.
"We are all in business to survive," Husted said. "But if we can't recoup our expenses we might as well park."
Ballard, from Reinhard, supplies Husted's diesel.
"Poor David," Ballard said Thursday. "He is getting a drop today and he doesn't know that his price is going up again. The price of diesel and heating oil is off the charts. It's going higher and higher and there is no good reason for it."
Ballard said his highest cost in running his business is the cost of fuel to run their own trucks to make the fuel deliveries.
"Who would ever have thought that the cost of 100 gallons of heating oil was going to cost $400," Ballard said. "And diesel is very similar to heating oil.
"We are in this with everyone else and it's affecting the customers," Ballard said.
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Patricia Breakey can be reached at 746-2894 or at stardelhi@stny.rr.com.
