National Average Price for Regular Unleaded Current: $3.518; Month Ago: $3.832; Year Ago: $3.760. National Average Price for Diesel Current: $4.497; Month Ago: $4.569; Year Ago: $5.309.

Brent, the international benchmark for oil prices, hit a session high of $80.50 a barrel on Thursday, its strongest level since Nov. 24, 2014, when it topped out at $80.85. The contract eased back to $79.19 by 2:25 p.m. ET, down 9 cents. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude ended the day unchanged from the previous session at $71.49 a barrel. WTI earlier hit a high going back to Nov. 28, 2014 at $72.30 a barrel. Click Read More below for additional information.

American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index rose 0.4% in December after decreasing 2.5% in November. In December, the index equaled 115.2 (2015=100) versus 114.8 in November. “Despite the small gain in December, for-hire truck tonnage clearly decelerated during the final quarter in 2022,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. “In fact, tonnage outperformed some other key metrics that drive truck freight, like housing starts and factory output during the final month of the year. This is probably because contract truckload freight is still outperforming the spot market and less-than-truckload freight after underperforming both of those sectors in 2021.” For all of 2022, tonnage was up 3.4%, which was the best annual gain since 2018.