National Average Price for Regular Unleaded Current: $2.196; Month Ago: $2.071; Year Ago: $2.750. National Average Price for Diesel Current: $2.440; Month Ago: $2.418; Year Ago: $3.003.

Today, the American Trucking Associations released its latest ATA Freight Transportation Forecast: 2020 to 2031, which is conducted annually by IHS Markit, showing that despite contraction in 2020, the long-term trend for both trucking and overall freight shipments is still positive. Among the findings in this year’s Forecast: *Total freight volumes in 2020 are likely to collapse by 10.6% to 14.6 billion tons, although truck freight volumes falls a smaller 8.8%. *Trucking volumes are expected to rebound in 2021, rising 4.9% next year and then growing 3.2% per year on average through 2026. *Overall freight revenues in 2020 will total $879 billion, rising to $1.435 trillion in 2031.

“Prices are being driven up by tight supply due to high production outages in Venezuela plus the cuts implemented by OPEC and Russia,” said Carsten Fritsch, analyst at Commerzbank. “What is more, demand appears robust.” The United States has until May 12 to decide whether to quit a nuclear deal with Iran and reimpose sanctions against the third-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, tightening global supplies. OPEC’s supply curtailments and the threat of new sanctions are occurring as demand in Asia, the biggest oil-consuming region, has risen to a record. Click Read More below for additional information.