Erin Smith, Staff Writer

With diesel prices climbing ever higher, local trucking firms are feeling the pinch. One local service station was advertising $4.07 per gallon diesel fuel last week. The national average for diesel fuel as of April 7 was about $4 per gallon.

Trucker Wade Butler said it was making things difficult on his business, W. P. Butler Trucking of Dublin. He operates 15 trucks which haul in North Carolina and Virginia.

“It’s about to close us up,” said Butler of the prices.

He said it now costs him about $1,230 to fuel a truck.

Owner/ Operator Steve Carroll echoed Butler’s sentiments, “It’s been pretty tough on us.”

Both men say the increasing costs of operating those big rigs hauling goods to markets both here and in other states is inching up and putting a crunch on profits. Carroll operates a fleet of five trucks and hauls loads as far south as Georgia and as far north as Virginia. Carroll, who estimates he hauls about 75 percent of the peanuts, peanut products, and peanut butter for Peanut Processors in Dublin, said a fill-up used to cost about $250. Now, it can cost as much as $1,000.

“You don’t burn a load of fuel all in one day, but it’s still expensive,” said Carroll of refueling.

He said a lot of truckers shut down or slowed down on the roadways last Monday to protest the high fuel prices.

“We only had one load scheduled to go out on Monday. The rest of our trucks were idle to help them out,” said Carroll of the stoppage.

Butler said he left it up to his individual drivers if they wished to participate.

“I’ve never seen it this way and I’ll soon be 69,” said Butler of the high fuel prices. “They’re killing the economy with the gas and fuel prices.”

Butler says his company is really feeling the crunch and Carroll says his customers are feeling it as well.

For example, Carroll says if a company is paying a trucking firm $1,000 to haul their product, half of that money now is spent on fuel costs and the remainder is divided between paying the driver, paying the insurance, taxes and other costs incurred to haul the load.

“We’re just breaking even,” Carroll said of his firm.

He feels its unfair for the customers to bear the burden for the increasing fuel charges.

“I don’t think they should have to bear the whole burden,” he said of his customers.

“We’re just hanging in there,” said Butler of his company.