Bulk Freight News & Industry Updates - Stay Ahead in Trucking

WASHINGTON, D.C. The U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is bringing clarity to the Hours of Service (HoS) exemptions for agricultural haulers. The FMCSA received 566 comments and questions during a public consultation period this winter on the proposed regulatory guidance surrounding the issue and is providing answers to areas of the exemptions that were less than clear.

OMAHA (DTN) -- Investigators at the Food and Drug Administration spent the past two months trying to track the source of romaine lettuce linked to 172 confirmed illnesses, 75 hospitalizations and at least one death. The FDA found at least one Arizona farm involved but agency investigators can't confirm if all of the illnesses came from one grower, harvester, processor or distributor. They are still looking.

A heavyweight panel of trucking industry executives opined on a variety of issues earlier this month at the Wolfe Research Global Transportation Conference in New York, and tight capacity was the theme of the day. Some of the highlights of their hour-long discussion are summarized below: (Freightwaves was not present at the session, but listened to the audio of it, which can be accessed online.)

SOUTH SIOUX CITY, Neb. (KCAU) -- There are reports of a grain elevator explosion in South Sioux City, Nebraska. A witness told Nexstar contributing station KCAU that they saw smoke billowing but that they weren't close enough to see any flames. So far, several area residents have reported a massive explosion during the afternoon. It reportedly happened on the west side of the city. Crews are on scene and ask that people stay clear of the area.

The Western States Trucking Association plans to challenge a California Supreme Court ruling that it says will effectively end the use of trucking owner-operators in the state.

America has a massive shortage of truck drivers. Joyce Brenny, head of Brenny Transportation in Minnesota, increased driver pay 15 percent this year to try to attract more drivers. Many of her drivers now earn $80,000, she says, yet she still can't find enough people for the job.

ELDs have been the most polarizing subject in the freight markets over the past few years. The large enterprise carriers have wanted them to ensure that every carrier followed the same set of rules. Smaller owner-operators and voice freight brokers felt as if ELDs were government encroachment into their lives. The fear of big-brother monitoring every move is more emotional than reality, but the economic impacts are real.

The Eagle Ford Shale in south Texas is, once again, showing signs of growth for the oil and gas industry, and frac sand operations are taking notice. My San Antonio reports that Fort Worth-based Black Mountain Sand plans to cons

How should drivers be paid. When it comes to long haul shipments, drivers are paid mainly based on the distance they travel. Should drivers be paid instead based on the hours a trip takes to complete? There are good arguments that can be made for this.

Corn steam flaking mill to have new grain handling, storage and cleaning systems.

Corn steam flaking mill to have new grain handling, storage and cleaning systems.

A strike by truckers in Brazil has brought Latin America's largest economy to a halt. The strike has been going on for more than a week.

Another bill calling for exemptions to the electronic logging device (ELD) mandate in the United States has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.

William B. Cassidy, Senior Editor | May 24, 2018 8:56AM EDT When talking about capacity, shippers too often focus on drivers

A bill was filed Wednesday in the U.S. House that would, if passed, exempt the smallest trucking companies those with 10 trucks or fewer from compliance with the U.S. DOTs electronic logging device mandate on a permanent basis.

If you said the inside of a down pillow, you would have been close. But you would have also been wrong.

China will import record volumes of U.S. oil and is likely to ship more U.S. soy after Beijing signalled to state-run refiners and grains purchasers they should buy more to help ease tensions between the two top economies, trade sources said on Wednesday.

CEDAR RAPIDS A Cedar Rapids transportation broker pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to defrauding a bank by submitting fake invoices for at least $550,000 worth of freight that didnt exist.

A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators is nudging Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator Ray Martinez to act swiftly to reform the hours-of-service rule to provide needed flexibility for [truck] drivers.

While broader inflation gauges have been restrained, price pressures are building in the freight and cargo industry. Demand is surging from firms looking for trucks to carry their loads, with some gauges up more than 100 percent on a year-over-year basis. Inflation is showing up elsewhere as well, with a New York Fed indicator at its highest level since 2006.

You know theres something up when you give farmers the chance to complain about grain companies and they dont take it. I had that experience recently when I ran a Twitter poll asking farmers about their experiences with grain companies and whether that relationship had gotten worse in recent years. To my surprise few farmers (of the 316 people including a few non-farmers who responded) seemed to feel think the situation had worsened in the last 15 years. Almost two

ILLINGS, Mont. (AP) An eastern Montana trucking company and its owner were convicted of more than a dozen federal charges filed after a 2012 explosion destroyed an oil processing plant. The Billings Gazette reports

The American Trucking Associations estimates that America will need 90,000 new truck drivers on the road every year for the next decade to keep up with transport and shipping demands. Some of the issues at the root of the problem include low unemployment rates, the lifestyle of living on the road, and the pay.

Unfavorable weather weighed on the most recent quarterly results for many of the agriculture companies we cover, as a delayed start to the U.S. planting season reduced sales across every crop input category. While seed sales should bounce back in the next quarter, we expect lower quantities of nitrogen and crop chemicals will be used in 2018 as the late start reduces midseason applications. However, stronger potash demand outside North America should more than offset stagnant or slightly reduced

Cargill Inc. started out as a grain trading company by building thousands of elevators in rural areas that farmers could reach in a day by horse and wagon. Today, being close to farmers isnt as important as it once was. Farmers are just as informed about price and demand trends as Cargill is. Many of them now run huge operations that are spread out over many miles. And most farmers also store their own grain, timing its sale to maximize

Prices for diesel fuel may revisit record highs within the next year or two, affecting many marketsfrom refiners to transportation to agriculture. U.S. diesel prices at the pump stood at $3.167 a gallon on Friday, according to data compiled by the Oil Price Information Service, or OPIS, for motoring and leisure-travel group AAA. They averaged $3.09 a gallon this month, the highest monthly level since December 2

The Duff brothers own a tidy little business empire in the South full of unglamorous businesses like Frozen Food Express, a trucking service with a fleet of temperature-controlled tractor-trailers. Altogether Jim, 57, and Tom, 61, own and run 18 companies with a total of 10,000 employees. Its enough to make each of them worth an estimated $1.2 billion apiece. (Neither brother would comment on their net worth). The family heirloom, and most valuable business, is unquestionably $1 billion (

For every 24-hour shift, long-haul truckers are required by law to rest for 10 hours. During this time, their vehicles are often left idling in order to power their electrical appliances and keep the engine and fuel warm in the winter.

LINCOLN, Neb. Robert King lives in Atlanta, Georgia and has been a truck driver for just two months. "I wanted to get out of the factory and warehouse job and do something different, see t

As the trucking industry continues to broadly install and learn to use the ELDs (electronic logging devices) required by the FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration), there are beginning to be large disparities in the way the devices are impacting capacity via mode. Carrier size is a challenge to ELD adoption, with smaller carriers struggling more than larger carriers, but equipment type is proving to be a larger challenge than carrier size.

CAMBRIDGE, Neb. (NTV NEWS) After harvest, there's often talk about how well crops did, but a high yield doesn't amount to much if you're not able to sell your product.

Omaha trucking giant plans an appeal of the decision after losing case stemming from 2014 fatal crash

As the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development takes up consideration of a Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 appropriations bill to fund the U.S. Department of Transportation, opponents of longer and heavier trucks have ramped up a campaign to stop legislative efforts to make 33-foot doubles and 90,000-pound-plus GVWs commonplace.

Sand, coal and chemicals topped rail shipments for the week of May 12, while intermodal traffic outdistanced carloads again.

SAO PAULO, May 15 (Reuters) - Brazils JBS SA, the worlds largest meatpacking company, said on Tuesday that rising prices for grain, the key raw material for feed, dont show any hint of cooling off, forcing it to cut other costs.

Kansas City-based Bartlett and Co., a local employer for more than 100 years, is merging into a Utah-based conglomerate, the companies announced Wednesday.

A large swath of the U.S. remains in extreme or exceptional drought. The region missed out on more than April showers. Less than 2 inches of rain has fallen across much of West Texas since last October, compared with an average of about 10 inches over the same period last year.

CHICAGO, May 16 (Reuters) - U.S. crop handler Bartlett and Company, which exports American grain to Mexico, will merge with logistics provider Savage Companies, the firms said on Wednesday, in the latest round of consolidation to hit the struggling agriculture sector. Officials for Missouri-based Bartlett and Utah-based Savage did not release financial terms or say what prompted the timing of the deal. The transaction is expected to close in August, according to the privately held comp

SPRINGDALE, ARK. Tyson Foods, Inc. has agreed to acquire the poultry rendering and blending assets of Cumming, Ga.-based American Proteins, Inc. and AMPRO Products, Inc. for a purchase price of approximately $850 million.

Pennsylvania-based Preferred Proppants said Tuesday construction is underway on an in-basin frac sand mine and facility in Oakwood, Okla. The mine is expected to come online by Oct. 1. It will serve the growing SCOOP and STACK plays in Oklahoma, along with other Midcontinent plays, Kallanish Energy reports.

As industry professionals put it, the US truck freight market has turned with a vengeance; even so, as outlined at the Transplace Shipper Symposium in Texas there are still tactics shippers can deploy to secure freight space.

Midway through a cross-country demonstration run converging on Atlanta late last fall, the seven tractor-trailers participating in the Run on Less truck efficiency roadshow had posted impressive double-digit miles per gallon (mpg) results. But when real-world conditions got factored in, they highlighted the challenges truck operators face in squeezing the most optimal fuel efficiency from their equipment.

WERE ALL CONNECTED through the miracle of global shipping. Sometimes, that leads us to semi-awkward conversations with random strangers about consumer goods from overseas. Not long ago, I was waiting in line at a Maine Turnpike northbound rest stop when I overheard the customer in front of me complaining about the price of a bottle of Evian water. I did some quick mental math and d

April 2018 trailer orders were still solid for the month, with a 10% increase compared to April 2017 and 21% higher than 2015.

The Economist reports that the political group Sikhs PAC estimates there are 150,000 Sikhs in the trucking industry and that nearly 90 percent of those people work as drivers, In addition to that, nearly 20,000 Sikhs have been joining the industry each year.

http://www.trucker.com/business/your-trucker-pre-trip-ooida-calls-driver-shortage-myth

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-11/truck-shortage-has-shippers-luring-u-s-drivers-with-coffee-tv Once at the mercy of shippers, truckers now are turning the tables, thanks to surging freight demand and a shortage of drivers.

http://www.truckinginfo.com/channel/fleet-management/news/story/2018/05/what-are-the-factors-behind-the-tight-truck-market-and-how-long-will-it-last.aspx Although the April 1 start to hard enforcement of the electronic logging device mandate does not seem to have had a huge effect on trucking capacity (except

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-11/truck-shortage-has-shippers-luring-u-s-drivers-with-coffee-tv Once at the mercy of shippers, truckers now are turning the tables, thanks to surging freight demand and a shortage of drivers.

https://www.gobytrucknews.com/carriers-tca-twin-trailer/123 A group of carriers and shippers calling themselves Americans For Modern Transportation is asking for provisions that would increase the national twin trailer standard from 28 feet to 33 feet to be included in the FY 2019 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Bill.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/bid-to-change-truck-safety-law-could-cost-missouri-million/article_47694cac-4235-5fab-bc1a-31e199b84f71.html Missouri lawmakers are considering a proposal that could cost the state $8 million in federal funding.

https://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/a_stark_difference_in_opinion_over_truck_size_and_weight_remains_intact_bet As is the case with any good debate, or argument, there is always an argument for something and an argument against something. And this has perhaps never been clearer than when it comes to the matter of motor carriers usage of twin 33-foot trai

https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/05/why-a-trucking-company-built-its-own-grid/ At the Pitt Ohio trucking facility in Harmar, Pennsylvania, tractor trailers roll up to a depot where lights, computers, and electric forklifts are all powered by clean energy produced on-site.

https://www.trucks.com/2018/05/09/trucking-industry-robot-apocalypse/ The trucking and logistics industry has entered a disruptive period in which fuels, propulsion systems and the driving process itself are the subjects of debate. One key question is whether the industry is facing a robot apocalypse where sell-driving trucks will replace millions of drivers.

https://www.drovers.com/article/tyson-foods-shares-rebound-drop-earlier-higher-freight-costs Tyson Foods Inc. shares turned higher on Monday on last-half profit optimism after its quarterly profits missed Wall Street estimates as the biggest U.S. meat processor felt the brunt of higher freight and labor costs, sending its shares down nearly 6 percent in premarket trading.

https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Is-This-The-End-Of-Diesel-Trucks.html Truck fleet operators who not long ago rejected the idea of bringing in electrified commercial vehicles are starting to open up but doubts still need to be resolved, according to a new study.

http://www.dcvelocity.com/articles/20180504-aar-in-policy-shift-to-oppose-any-effort-to-change-truck-size-laws/ The Association of American Railroads (AAR) said it will fight efforts in Congress requiring states to allow longer twin-trailers on the National Highway System, which includes the interstate network, a major shift in AAR policy that could dim the chances

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-04/not-enough-west-texas-railroads-to-handle-both-oil-and-sand Oil producers may be getting in their own way in the race to pump crude from the fertile Permian Basin. Railcars full of sand have helped producers unlock re

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-agriculture-exports/trade-rows-spell-gain-and-pain-for-u-s-grain-exporters-idUSKBN1I30EK?il=0 CHICAGO (Reuters) - Global grain marketers have seized upon trade tensions between the United States and several of its top export markets, including China, to turn around struggling trading units foll

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/carrier-confidence-has-impacted-freight-markets-as-much-as-capacity The 2017 freight market was like the scene in the action movie where the downtrodden hero discovers he has a special gift that gives him a marked advantage over his foes. After being beaten down for years they proceed to set the screen ablaze with a dominance yet unseen. Wel

http://www.trucker.com/drivers/your-trucker-pre-trip-brawl-between-ata-ooida-goes-public During the Nasstrac Shipper Conference and Expo in Orlando, Chris Spear, president of the American Trucking Assns., blasted the agenda and tactics of t

http://www.postbulletin.com/agrinews/news/columns/pay-attention-to-grain-prices-during-planting-season/article_648116a0-4d77-11e8-a90c-ef60698bcd55.html In many years, some of the best grain marketing opportunities occur during planting season, which is normally from late April until early June. Sometimes, plan

https://www.trucknews.com/regulations/lowering-cdl-age-u-s-mistake-ooida/1003085541/ GRAIN VALLEY, Mo. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) is calling on the U.S. House of Representatives to block efforts to lower the age at which a commercial drivers license can be obtained.

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/2018/5/1/eld-devices-give-carriers-pricing-power Deregulation had a profound impact on the trucking market that resulted in massive upheaval for the incumbents. If you look at the top 100 trucking companies that existed before deregulation, only about 20% are still around. The rest went away because they couldnt survive in a free and competitive market.

http://www.world-grain.com/articles/news_home/World_Grain_News/2018/05/ADM_DuPont_open_biobased_FDME.aspx?ID={C5F95CFF-F669-4915-AC16-9C914C6CF410} DECATUR, ILLINOIS, U.S. DuPont Industrial Biosciences (DuPont) and Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM) on April 30 announced the opening of the worlds first biobased furan