R&R Hiab Services Ltd owner Ray Casey said it would then only be a matter of time before the entire country came to a halt.
He said pre-Covid-19, diesel was costing about 85c per litre, plus GST. But yesterday it was costing him $2.90 per litre.
‘‘That’s a huge increase in the cost. It’s massive.
‘‘And road-user charges [RUC] have also increased in recent years, which is not helping.’’
He said some of that extra cost was now being passed on to his customers.
At the moment, he was still busy because the materials he was moving were bought by customers before the price hikes.
‘‘People can’t stop because they’ve already ordered these things.
‘‘So we are delivering them and we’re trying to run as economically as we can.
‘‘We’re trying to combine loads. We take a load somewhere, and we bring a load of something else back — so the trucks don’t run anywhere empty.’’
However, he said people had now stopped ordering materials because they were worried about how much it was going to cost to have them transported.
‘‘I’m expecting things, in a month or so, to really die right down — and for a decent length of time — because people are uncertain.
‘‘They don’t know what’s going to happen, so they’re just going to hold back and pinch pennies.’’
That drop in business would eventually take a toll on transport companies, he said.
‘‘People are going to run out of money.
‘‘It will come to reduced hours and it will come to the stage that, hey, if the work’s not there, we certainly have to look at keeping the business alive, and there’s not a whole lot of options really.
‘‘It’s reducing overheads and staff. Staff, fuel and RUCs are our three biggest overheads.
‘‘Worst-case scenario, that could play out in the next three months.’’
He said it was the same for all the other transport company owners he had been speaking to recently.
‘‘A lot of them are so uncertain.
‘‘A lot of them don’t know what charges to employ. A lot of them don’t know how much to pass on to clients.
‘‘Transport companies don’t work on massive margins at all. Margins are tight — it’s quite a tough game.’’
A Dunedin-based transport company operator, who declined to be named, said he had to be careful about how much of the ‘‘horrendous’’ cost he passed on to his customers.
There was only so much that could be passed on to customers, otherwise it would price him out of business.
‘‘I think you’ll find most transport companies would say that they’re just trying to be as fair as they can about passing on the increased cost, but it’s difficult circumstances, you know.
‘‘It’s a massive inconvenience, it’s a massive worry, and you wonder where it’s all going to end.
‘‘Here’s hoping it’s not going to last too much longer.’’
Ranfurly Transport general manager Rachel Duffy said the company was changing its fuel adjustment factor (FAF) charge on a weekly basis at the moment.
‘‘We now invoice weekly so that customers get the specific FAF for that week, making sure that our customers are getting a fair deal, because it is hard on them too.
‘‘We do feel sorry for the people at the bottom of the line, because our prices have had to change for our running costs, which we need to cover.’’
Ms Duffy said the situation was becoming so dire that she had heard of diesel being stolen from truck tanks in Southland.
‘‘One of the major changes for us is that we’ve asked the drivers to fuel up in the morning, rather than at night like we used to, because of the threat that fuel tanks could be tampered with overnight.’’
South Otago Transport (1999) director Michael Williams said, at present, continuation of supply was of greater concern for him.
‘‘We had a bit of an issue getting hold of diesel last week, but that seems to have eased for now.
‘‘We’ve just had to be smarter in getting the fuel we need to keep running.’’
He said a fuel tank for a typical truck now cost about $1500 to fill — up from $750 before the fuel crisis struck.
‘‘We get it cheaper than Joe Public, but even so, it’s pretty eye-watering.
‘‘It feels a bit like the government and regulators are just telling us what we need to hear.’’ — Additional reporting Evie Sinclair and Richard Davison
