Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are discussing an agreement that would raise oil output by 300,000 to 600,000 barrels a day (bpd) over the next few months, Bloomberg reported, citing people briefed on the talks. That is well below the 1.5 million bpd uptick in production touted a few weeks ago, reducing investor fears of a significant slowdown in rebalancing in oil markets, which could potentially hurt oil prices. Click Read More below for additional information.

FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller calls the truck driver shortage a “myth” in a recent piece of self-promotion, but his assertion collapses under the weight of facts and data. Fuller claims the mythical shortage is an ATA fabrication—a narrative perpetuated for our convenience. Of course, we’re not alone in reporting this issue. Driver shortages are global in scope, with growing vacancies felt across the Americas, Asia, and Europe, and documented in IRU’s 2022 Global Driver Shortage Report: In Europe, driver shortages jumped by 42% from 2020 to 2021, with vacant driver positions reaching 71,000 in Romania, 80,000 in both Poland and Germany, and 100,000 in the UK. In Mexico, shortages rose by 30% to reach 54,000, while in China, they increased by 140%, reaching 1.8 million.

American Dollar to Canadian Dollar = 0.739167; American Dollar to Chinese Yuan = 0.145198; American Dollar to Euro = 1.098098; American Dollar to Japanese Yen = 0.007472; American Dollar to Mexican Peso = 0.055583.