With diesel prices rising, truckers ring up a $1,400 fill-up

PORTSMOUTH

Think you pay a lot for a fill-up? Imagine how truck drivers must feel:

A big rig with two 150-gallon tanks can cost as much as $1,400 to fill up these days.

Drivers who own and operate their own trucks are among the hardest hit by the run-up in the cost of diesel, which averaged $4.66 a gallon in Hampton Roads on Wednesday, according to AAA. That's up from $2.82 a gallon a year ago. Back then, diesel was cheaper than gasoline, which averaged $2.99 for regular.

George Eure, an independent driver who lives in Suffolk, shook his head Wednesday as he fueled his truck at the Supreme fuel stop near the Portsmouth Marine Terminal. There, diesel cost $4.59 a gallon.

"Rough. It's real rough," he said, summing up the impact of high fuel prices. "I don't know how much longer I'll be able to stay out here."

For $200, he was able to put 43.5 gallons in his black Kenworth. That's enough for one day of local driving, said Eure, 42.

Most big rigs get between 4 and 7.5 miles per gallon.

Diesel prices have been on an upward tear owing to high crude oil prices and strong global demand for diesel, from China in particular, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.

Truckers say they're being squeezed because the rates they're being paid to haul freight are not increasing as diesel costs continue climbing. Those who own their trucks are vulnerable because they pay their own fuel costs - there's no trucking company to cover their expense.

On top of high fuel prices, the economic slowdown is compounding the problem by cutting the volume of cargo moving through Hampton Roads and other ports across the country. That means less business for truckers, further reducing their take-home pay.

"A lot of these truck drivers, and I'm one of them, we're one breakdown away from being out of business," said Damond Pope, a 35-year-old trucker from Hampton. "Everybody's been digging out of savings to pay expenses."

Trucks haul 70 percent of the nation's freight, according to the American Trucking Associations, an industry trade group. The sector is projected to spend a record $154.1 billion on diesel this year, up 45 percent from 2006.

Because of spiral ing costs, some owner-operator truckers are parking their rigs and opting for other work, said Bill Jackson, president of the Tidewater Motor Truck Association. However, he was unable to provide numbers on how many.

Nationwide, about 10 percent of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association's members have recently either parked or sold their trucks, said spokeswoman Norita Taylor.

Truckers are trying several methods to deal with high fuel prices. Some, like Robert Stone of Norfolk, are driving slower to conserve fuel. Stone, 41, tries to stay between 55 and 60 m ph. He also recently installed locking caps on his fuel tanks to protect his energy investment.

The high diesel costs have prompted about 200 local truckers to band together into a new group, the Owner Operators Coalition of Virginia. The coalition's aim is to give the drivers a unified voice on local trucking matters, said Pope, who sits on the group's board of directors.

"We don't have any type of organization to go through to voice our issues or to have a steady line of communication with the ports," Pope said.

The Motor Truck Association is for trucking company officials, not truck drivers, Pope said, which Jackson disputed.

One of the coalition's main goals is increasing the efficiency of Hampton Roads' marine container terminals, which are operated by Virginia International Terminals Inc., an arm of the state-controlled Virginia Port Authority, and by the Dutch firm APM Terminals. Getting in and out of terminals quicker would aid the port while reducing diesel use, Pope said.

The plight of independent truckers has caught Congress' attention.

Legislation is pending in both the House and Senate that would ensure that any fuel surcharges paid by shippers to cover fuel costs are fully passed down to the drivers.

Sometimes, freight forwarders or other middlemen take a cut of the surcharge, truckers say. Those bills are sitting in committees.

Trucking companies also are being hit hard by market conditions.

In the first three months of the year, 935 trucking firms went bankrupt, a 143 percent increase from last year that was due in part to higher fuel prices, according to a report in the May 26 edition of industry magazine Traffic World.

Jackson predicted that the industry's woes would ease as trucking companies closed or cut the sizes of their fleets, reducing capacity. With a curtailed supply, those firms that remain would be able to raise rates, he said.

Patrick McAllister began working as an independent trucker in May 2007, after 15 years working at Ford Motor Co.'s former Norfolk Assembly Plant.

With the challenges posed by the high fuel costs, the 49-year-old Newport News resident said, he's been having some second thoughts about his new line of work. But he plans to persevere.

"Every industry goes through cycles, up and down, and you have to have the fortitude to ride it out," McAllister said. "Tough times never last, but tough people do."

Gregory Richards, (757) 446-2599, gregory.richards@pilotonline.com