Fuel Price Prompts More Surcharges
The price of diesel fuel left 1999 the way it spent most of the year – heading upward. In the process, it pushed three more carriers – Federal Express, Airborne Express and Viking Freight System – to implement fuel surcharges.
The national average retail price of diesel fuel on Jan. 3 was $1.309 a gallon, up 1.1 cents from the previous week and 34.4 cents from the start of 1999, according the federal Energy Information Administration. It broke the most recent high of $1.304 that was reached on Nov. 29.
That trend continued on Dec. 30, when FedEx announced it was implementing a 3% fuel surcharge on most domestic and international services. Its executive vice president, Alan B. Graf Jr., said the express parcel carrier had "held off" a decision on the surcharge to allow customers to get through the peak shipping season.
 | Fuel Prices | ||
| Week of Jan. 3: | |||
| source | price | change | |
| DOE | 130.9 | +1.1 | |
| Comdata | 128.4 | +1.2 | |
| OPIS self-serve | 129.4 | +1.0 | |
| OPIS wholesale | 75.8 | +1.5 | |
| |||
Toward the end of last year, which saw diesel fuel hit a historic low of 95.3 cents in February and then rose steadily, both truckload and less-than-truckload carriers sought higher rates or imposed fuel surcharges for their services. Many of them attributed the need to charge customers more to rising fuel costs, which were sapping profits.
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