While Prince George drivers are paying lots of attention to the cost of regular gasoline, the soaring price of diesel is raising eyebrows in the trucking sector.
Diesel fuel is 209.9 cents per litre at some locations in the northern capital.
Dave Earle with the BC Trucking Association told MyPGNow.com that it has soared to new heights since the fall.
“I can go back to last fall where it was a buck forty or a buck fifty a litre and now in the Lower Mainland, we are pushing $2.20 to $2.30 a litre. So, we are up a significant amount and really what that means is through the overall community is that it is harder and harder to find those efficiencies and find those ways to get there.”
Earle expects the cost of certain goods to go up as well with semi-trucks, trains, and some ships all using diesel fuel.
He stated the higher prices will have a negative effect on the bottom line.
“About 30% of the consumable cost of a truck operating is fuel. So, when that cost goes up 60 or 70% over the past few months, you can kind of do the math and say the overall cost of doing that run is 10% to 15% higher.”
“When we look at how goods move, they are moved under a long-standing contract and I don’t know any contracts that don’t have fuel surcharges and fuel calculations in them and yes, they do go up or down,” said Earle.
Earle added when we talk about the transportation of goods, it’s not just diesel that is accelerating prices.
“We’ve got significant increases in compensation for drivers, dispatchers, and warehouse people that have all happened in the past year. We have a scarcity of equipment – trailers are available as much as our members would like. Tractors and our lead time to get them is a year or a year and a half so you can’t replace old equipment. All of these things have really come together to accelerate pricing.”
Starting June 1st, B-C Ferries will hike its fuel surcharge from one percent to 2.5 percent due energy cost increases.
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