Diesel Fuel

U.S. diesel prices continue to drop

C.H. Robinson diesel fuel freight market update

Retail diesel's national U.S. average price per gallon of $3.59 in October is up from $3.56 in September and much lower than the $4.51 average from October 2023. This marks the 20th consecutive month of year over year decreases in fuel, but just the second time in 2024 that has seen a month over month increase.

As mentioned in the August 2024 Freight Market Update, in a soft market, carriers often will need to deadhead longer mileage to find a load. While fuel is largely considered a pass-through accessorial, deadhead is often a sunken cost for carriers, especially in soft markets.

This continuing decrease in diesel pricing is another alleviating factor contributing to the persistence of smaller carriers, as the extra deadhead isn’t necessarily equating to further sunken costs. If diesel prices increase, it would add more strain to carriers and speed up carrier attrition from the market.

eia chart showing average weekly U.S. retail diesel price per gallon

 

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*This information is compiled from a number of sources—including market data from public sources and data from C.H. Robinson—that to the best of our knowledge are accurate and correct. It is always the intent of our company to present accurate information. C.H. Robinson accepts no liability or responsibility for the information published herein. 

To deliver our market updates to our global audiences in the timely manner possible, we rely on machine translations to translate these updates from English.