PHOENIX (AZFamily) — The average price of diesel in the United States has reached its highest point in history at $6.23 per gallon, according to AAA.
In Arizona, the average price of diesel is three cents below the national average at $6.20 a gallon.
Sara VanFleet started her custom heavy-duty water truck business, DB Trucks, in 2019.
“We actually build the bodies for the construction water trucks, fire tenders, anything water related,” VanFleet said.
The business has dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic, tariffs, inflation and now record-setting diesel fuel prices.
“Just nervous, nervous of what’s to come,” VanFleet said. “How long can we sustain this? What’s the ripple effect going to be for first quarter next year?”
Every water truck is assembled at the business. Individual parts are shipped in, and the completed truck is shipped out. Diesel fuels that process.
“Our overall trucks are going up,” VanFleet said. “We obviously have to pass a lot of that on to our consumers and our customers.”
While diesel prices don’t directly affect everyone at the pump, they impact most goods that people buy.
“It’s a huge deal,” said Clark Miller, director of the Center for Energy and Society at Arizona State University.
He said overseas wars in Ukraine and Iran have cut diesel supplies, leading the U.S. to pull more fuel from its own refineries.
“A lot of that diesel is going to other places in the world because they can get higher prices for it in other parts of the world,” Miller said. “And so that drives up our prices here in the U.S.”
It’s not just the businesses that use diesel directly that will be impacted by these prices.
Diesel is one of the backbones of agriculture and has a direct impact on the prices we pay at the grocery store.
“Diesel runs the economy, and so it runs all year long,” Miller said. “And people are buying it every day. And so, my guess is as they’re seeing those prices go up, they’re passing that on to their customers almost instantaneously. And then that just slowly works its way into the prices of the goods that show up on our store shelves.”
As for VanFleet, she said she is managing the current challenges DB Trucks is facing but worries about what several more months of high prices could mean for her business and her seven employees.
“We’re a small company. We’ve been working together, you know, for six years, and it’s important that they all have jobs,” VanFleet said. “It’s a real challenge because we’ve got to keep everything moving forward and the prices where we can make money.”
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