AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report for Friday, 12/29/2017

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.

Oil edged higher on Wednesday, nearing three-year highs reached the previous day, as rising U.S. fuel inventories and production weighed on an otherwise bullish market. Weekly data on Tuesday that showed a rise in U.S. crude inventories also subdued the oil price somewhat. The prospect of fresh sanctions on Tehran and disruption to the country’s oil flows has helped push the oil price to its highest since late 2014 this month.

Today, the American Trucking Associations released its latest ATA Freight Transportation Forecast: 2020 to 2031, which is conducted annually by IHS Markit, showing that despite contraction in 2020, the long-term trend for both trucking and overall freight shipments is still positive. Among the findings in this year’s Forecast: *Total freight volumes in 2020 are likely to collapse by 10.6% to 14.6 billion tons, although truck freight volumes falls a smaller 8.8%. *Trucking volumes are expected to rebound in 2021, rising 4.9% next year and then growing 3.2% per year on average through 2026. *Overall freight revenues in 2020 will total $879 billion, rising to $1.435 trillion in 2031.