AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report for Friday, 1/13/23

National Average Price for Regular Unleaded Current: $3.692; Month Ago: $3.949; Year Ago: $3.191. National Average Price for Diesel Current: $4.977; Month Ago: $5.021; Year Ago: $3.299.

Futures in New York rose as much as 1.3 percent after climbing the most in eight months on Tuesday. President Donald Trump has intensified preparations for a response to a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria, a move that could place the U.S. in direct conflict with Russian forces. While the Middle East country’s own oil production is limited, prices often respond to the risk of war in a region that holds almost half of the world’s crude reserves. “The focus is on the West’s probable military strike against the Syrian regime,” said Carsten Fritsch and Eugen Weinberg, analysts at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. Click Read More below for additional information.

American Trucking Associations’ Technology & Maintenance Council and Decisiv Inc. said combined parts and labor expenses fell 1.4% during the fourth quarter of 2023. In the latest Decisiv/TMC North American Service Event Benchmark Report, TMC and Decisiv found that 25 key VMRS systems dipped in the final quarter of 2023, reversing a 2.1% increase the previous quarter. The decrease was driven largely by parts costs, which dropped 2.2% in the fourth quarter of 2023 while labor costs fell 0.2%. While quarter-over-quarter parts and labor costs both declined in the last three months of the year, the parts-to-labor ratio held steady at about 1.5 for the past year. On a year-over-year basis, combined parts and labor costs in final quarter of 2023 were 0.2% higher than the same quarter in 2022. However, in the annual comparison, a 2.2% drop in parts prices was offset by a 4.0% rise in labor costs.