Freight carriers and shippers cannot accurately forecast and budget for diesel fuel costs due to refining capacity constraints

Diesel prices remain elevated above $5/gallon, but the root cause—refining capacity shortages and outages—is unpredictable and invisible to logistics operators. Carriers, brokers, and shippers lack real-time visibility into refinery status, distillate inventory levels, and crack spreads, making fuel cost forecasting impossible and destroying margin predictability. Existing fuel hedging and budgeting tools fail because they don't account for the structural refining crisis driving prices.