Trucking & Rail Oct 20, 2026 · 8 min read

Diesel turns up again and Werner’s profit falls to less than half of forecast

Diesel is back above $6.27 and US truckers are paying for it. US diesel rose 9.7 cents to $6.276 a gallon in the week of 19 October, the first rise in four weeks (EIA). The same day, Werner cut its third-quarter profit guidance to 15–16 cents a share, against a 36-cent consensus (FreightWaves). Our view: fuel is now squeezing carrier margins, not just shipper invoices. DAT says van linehaul is 35% above last year, with truck posts 21–27% lower. Expect higher fuel surcharges this week and firmer contract asks. Our call: van linehaul stays above $2.20 a mile through end of November.

Diesel above $6.27 is now a carrier problem, and it will come back to shippers in the rate US diesel went up again this week. The EIA, the US government’s energy statistics agency, put the national on-highway diesel average at $6.276 a gallon for the week of 19 October. That is 9.7 cents more than the $6.179 of a week earlier, and the first weekly rise in four weeks.
On the same Monday, Werner Enterprises, one of the largest US truckload carriers, warned that its third-quarter profit would be less than half of what Wall Street expected. It guided to adjusted earnings of 15 to 16 cents a share. The analyst consensus was 36 cents, FreightWaves reported.
Our view is simple. For most of this year, high diesel has been something shippers saw on invoices through the fuel surcharge. Werner’s warning shows it is now hurting the carriers themselves. Carriers that are losing money on fuel, drivers and insurance do not hold rates flat. They push them up. Forwarders buying US inland trucking should plan for that now.

What the diesel numbers say

The EIA’s weekly series tells the story of the last two months. Diesel was $6.285 a gallon on 14 September. It jumped to $6.529 on 21 September. It then eased for three weeks, to $6.382, $6.199 and $6.179. This week it turned up again to $6.276.
The run-up before that was steep. Crux Investor, citing EIA data, reported US retail diesel at $5.454 a gallon on 17 August 2026, already $1.741 higher than a year before. From that point to this week’s figure, diesel is up about 82 cents, or roughly 15%.
For a longer view, FreightWaves reported in November 2025 that the EIA average had risen to $3.837 a gallon, then its highest level since July 2024. Today’s price is about $2.44 higher than that.
Diesel is also far above petrol. The EIA put regular gasoline at $4.284 a gallon this week. That leaves diesel nearly $2 a gallon dearer. In our reading, a gap that wide points to tight diesel supply rather than only a broad oil shock.
That fits the supply picture from the summer. Crux Investor reported that US refineries ran at 97.2% of capacity in the week to 14 August, the highest weekly rate of 2026. Even so, distillate stocks (distillates are diesel and heating oil) stood at 105.6 million barrels, about 13% below the five-year average. Refiners were tilting output toward gasoline. The same report noted that “refiners set product yields weeks ahead based on margins and crude quality”. In plain terms, refiners cannot switch to making more diesel overnight.
There are also signs that the brief dip in early October may not last. A 19 October shipper news brief from Intelligent Audit, summarising FreightWaves reporting, said that while diesel’s benchmark price had fallen for a third week, futures prices were rising, pointing to renewed pressure. This week’s EIA number bears that out.

What Werner actually said

Werner’s revised guidance is stark. Adjusted earnings of 15 to 16 cents a share, against a 36-cent consensus. Revenue of $946 million to $951 million, against $953.6 million expected, according to FreightWaves.
The company put the damage at 18 cents a share in total, from three sources:

higher diesel prices

higher costs to recruit and keep drivers

an adjustment to reserves for past insurance claims

Even if you added all 18 cents back, Werner would still fall short of the 36-cent consensus. That tells us the underlying business is also under pressure, not just hit by one-off costs.
FreightWaves set out the fuel timeline. Retail diesel fell 1% in July, then rose 10% in August and 15% in September. It rose week on week in nine of the 13 weeks of the quarter. Truckload fuel surcharges lag the pump price by a week. In a quarter when diesel rises almost every week, the carrier is always paying today’s price while billing last week’s. That gap adds up fast.
The market noticed. Werner shares were down 1.1% at 10:21 a.m. on Monday while the S&P 500 rose 0.7%. The stock is 31% below its mid-July peak. Full results are due on 27 October, after the US market closes.
Werner is not alone. J.B. Hunt warned in mid-September of cost pressures: $10 million from a sharp run-up in diesel, $25 million in driver costs and $10 million in cargo claims. When it reported on 15 October, FreightWaves said the actual impact in the quarter was more than $50 million. J.B. Hunt still beat its lowered forecast, with earnings of $1.82 a share and revenue of $3.68 billion against a $3.59 billion consensus. Its shares fell 2.4% after hours. FreightWaves wrote that “some of the incremental costs that plagued the period were likely transitory in nature.” Werner will need to make the same case on 27 October, and it will be harder to make with diesel rising again.

Why rates are high even with fewer loads

Here is the part that matters most for buyers of trucking. Spot rates are high, but not because freight demand is booming. They are high because there are fewer trucks.
DAT, which runs the largest US load board, reported for 10–16 October:

Van spot rate, including fuel: $3.09 a mile, down 3 cents

Reefer (refrigerated): $3.66 a mile, down 2 cents

Flatbed: $3.64 a mile, down 4 cents

DAT said lower diesel prices accounted for nearly all of those small falls. Strip fuel out and look at linehaul, the base rate before fuel, and rates barely moved. Van linehaul was $2.26 a mile, flat. Reefer was $2.76, up a cent. Flatbed was $2.65, flat.
Compared with a year ago, DAT’s market commentary by analyst Dean Croke put van linehaul up about 35%, reefer up 33% and flatbed up 29%. Flatbed linehaul was 26% above its nine-year seasonal average.
Meanwhile, van load posts fell 6% in the week, and total load posts fell 3% to 2.6 million. Load posts are still 12% to 23% above a year ago. But truck posts on DAT’s board are 21% to 27% below a year ago. Croke’s commentary opens with the point that capacity remains the key factor in pricing.
The load-to-truck ratio, which counts loads posted for every truck available, shows the same thing. Van was 9.7, down from 10.3. Reefer was 15.8. Flatbed was 36.5, up from 35.7. Higher ratios mean shippers and brokers are competing for scarce trucks.
Other data point the same way. The Intelligent Audit brief, drawing on Journal of Commerce reporting, said for-hire trucking jobs rose 0.1% to 1.45 million in September, the first year-on-year rise in 41 months. That is still about 10% below the August 2022 peak. The same brief said J.B. Hunt was regaining freight from customers who first rejected higher rates, some of it through mini-bids (short, off-cycle tenders), as capacity tightened.

What this means for forwarders

Our read: US trucking costs are being pushed up from two directions at once, and forwarders sit in the middle.
First, fuel. Fuel surcharge tables reset off the weekly EIA number. This week’s 9.7-cent rise will flow into surcharges on most truckload and LTL (less-than-truckload, shared trailer) invoices within days. On a long-haul van move, fuel is now a large slice of the all-in rate. The gap between DAT’s all-in van rate of $3.09 and its linehaul of $2.26 is 83 cents a mile.
Second, base rates. Carriers like Werner have just shown they are losing margin on fuel, drivers and insurance. They will look to recover that in linehaul, in accessorial charges, and in contract renewals. Mini-bids give them that chance mid-year.
In practice:

Quote validity. Inland legs on US import moves, including drayage from the ports, should carry short validity. A week is sensible while diesel moves 10 to 25 cents at a time.

Surcharge clauses. Check that customer contracts pass through fuel on the same weekly EIA basis your carriers use. A one-week lag hurt Werner. A one-month lag in your own billing would hurt more.

Contract season. 2027 truckload bid season is approaching. With linehaul 35% above last year and truck supply 21% to 27% thinner, shippers should not expect last year’s rates back.

Mode choice. J.B. Hunt’s eastern intermodal volumes rose 18% in the quarter, and North American domestic intermodal volume grew more than 8% through August, according to Journal of Commerce reporting cited by Intelligent Audit. Rail-truck combinations use less fuel per load and are worth pricing on long lanes.

What we expect next

Our prediction: diesel stays above $6 a gallon through the end of November, and DAT van linehaul holds above $2.20 a mile over the same period. DAT’s own 35-day forecast puts late-November van linehaul at $2.23, reefer at $2.78 and flatbed at $2.59. We think those are about right, with the risk to the upside if diesel keeps climbing.
We also expect Werner, when it reports on 27 October, to point to higher contract and spot pricing as the fix. Shippers should read that as notice: rate increase requests from US truckload carriers will be on the table well before the end of Q4.

Sources