Diesel Shortage Could Lead to Higher Prices in Alabama
Reports of a shortage of diesel fuel could lead to higher prices on consumer goods across Alabama.
Mark Colson, the president and CEO of the Alabama Trucking Association, told Alabama News that prices are higher and shoppers could see the impact.
As of Friday, the cost of diesel was about $4.99 a gallon in Alabama.
Colson says trucking is responsible for about 110,00 jobs in Alabama, and he says 86% of everything made is transported by trucks in the state.
He says the rising price of diesel is especially hard for independent truckers, who have to pay for it out of their own pocket.
But while inventories of diesel and gasoline are lower than they historically have been, the tight supply of diesel fuel is no cause for panic, and the U.S. is not going to run out of it, according to energy market experts speaking to CBS News.
“Inventories of diesel and gasoline are down below five-year averages, and if the entire world were to stop, we would have 25 days worth of diesel. But the world doesn’t stop. We’re not counting on it stopping,” Ed Hirs, a professor of energy economics at the University of Houston, told CBS MoneyWatch.
He likened the situation to a grocery store’s supply of milk at any given time.
“Your grocery store may have an inventory of three days of milk. That’s because they only have three days’ worth at any given point. But the cow keeps milking, the farmer keeps sending milk, the dairy keeps delivering,” Hirs said.
