Diesel Prices Could Hurt Distribution

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- U.S. supplies of crude oil hit 28-year lows last week, the government reported Wednesday, while diesel-fuel prices hit a near-record high, prompting some truckers to say they'll have to park their rigs and get other jobs because they're making no money.

''Guys are parking their trucks right now because of the cost of fuel,'' long-haul trucker Paul Sasso of Edgewater, Fla. told USA Today. ''We negotiate our contracts on a 2- or 3-percentage point margin, and it's not like a grocery store where you can go re-mark the price."

The truckers' complaint is an eerie echo of the 1974 independent truckers strike to protest high diesel prices during the first U.S. fuel crisis. The National Guard was called out to prevent violence, and food and fuel supplies were disrupted in some areas, the report said. The Energy Information Administration reports that the nationwide average for diesel is $1.662 a gallon. The record: $1.67 in October 2000.

''These large price increases will have devastating impacts on the trucking industry,'' American Trucking Associations CEO Bill Graves said in a letter to President George W. Bush earlier this week. He asked Bush to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to keep prices down -- a move strongly opposed by the oil industry.

In its weekly report, the EIA said crude oil on hand, excluding the 599.3 million barrels in the reserve, was 269.8 million barrels, the lowest since October 1975. If that falls more, refineries could run out, causing fuel shortages, though EIA did not predict that. Oil stockpiles are falling mainly because shipments from strike-hobbled Venezuela haven't rebounded.

Inventories of gasoline rose, however, putting them barely into the normal range even though gasoline use was up 3.1 percent the past four weeks, EIA said. More gasoline could work to slow rapid price increases. Regular-grade gasoline averaged $1.607, EIA said, up 8 cents in one week.