It isn’t just oil.
With the trucking industry’s most important benchmark oil number — the weekly Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration retail diesel price — rising for 11 weeks in a row, it’s important to note that the surge in oil prices is occurring against a backdrop of climbing commodity prices for almost everything.
The benchmark U.S. copper price stood at about $2.17 a pound April 1. It’s now near $3.60. Lumber at about $660 per thousand board feet is off its recent highs...