The benchmark price used for most diesel surcharges fell for the sixth time in the last seven weeks, with the prospect of more declines ahead.
This week’s Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration average weekly retail diesel price fell 7.3 cents/gallon to $5.523/g.
Despite the six out of seven ratio, the benchmark used for most fuel surcharges is still more than where it was four weeks ago, $5.351/g on April 27. That’s because three weeks ago the DOE/EIA recorded a 28.9 cts/g gain.
The latest decline comes against a backdrop of steep declines in the futures price of ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) on the CME commodity exchange, as markets sell off on the prospect of some sort of peace deal among the U.S., Iran and Israel that could reopen the Strait of Hormuz to full or at least limited traffic.
Sliding on CME
The scorecard on ULSD on CME is that it hit a recent peak settlement of $4.1625/g May 19. With talk emerging after that of a possible peace deal, the settlement plummeted to $3.7146/g on Tuesday, a decline of 44.79 cts/g, or 10.8%.
In Wednesday morning trading, ULSD at approximately 9:40 a.m. was $3.5409/g, down 12.85 cts/g or 3.47%. If it settled at that level, it would be the lowest settlement since April 20.
As the energy research team at Merrill Lynch said in a recent note, “There have been several false starts around reopening – i.e. the Apr 1 US claims that Iran asked for ceasefire, the Apr 8 joint announcement of ceasefire, the May 6 claims of progress made toward peace, etc.”
But as the report also noted–referring to energy-related stocks but in a statement that could be applied to petroleum commodities as well–”even though the strait remains closed, some energy investors are hesitant to add to energy stocks, knowing the strait could reopen soon and stocks could drop materially.”
While the Trump administration continues to claim that oil prices will come down sharply should some sort of peace agreement take hold, voices from the industry themselves are less sure of a coming deep slide in price, even if there is an initial bearish selloff.
Inventories will need to be restocked
In that Merrill report, the prospect of the oil industry needing to restore inventories back toward normal levels was highlighted. That would provide a source of demand that may not be getting priced in to the market at this point.
“The world has lost 3- to 4-million barrels/day of damaged Persian Gulf refined product capacity and 11-million b/d of net crude flows as the Iran War and Hormuz Strait closure reaches day 85,” the report said. “We assume that after this, strategic petroleum reserves of both will be fully refilled, and commercial storage will be refilled to at least the midpoint.”
Merrill’s math is that there will be 1.2 billion barrels of crude restocking demand, and 300 million barrels of restocking demand for refined products. At 1.5 billion barrels between the two, that’s almost 15 days’ worth of total daily pre-war global oil demand that would be needed just to bring inventories back to a more normal level.
Small loss of supply can have big impact
Jeffrey Currie, the former head of commodity research at Goldman Sachs who has been one of the loudest bullish voices during the Iran war, said in a recent interview that the impact of reducing oil supplies by roughly 20% because of the closure of the strait can’t be measured by simple mathematical calculations.
Currie, in an interview with CNBC, discussed two previous price spikes: the 2008 surge to almost $150/b, and the jump in prices after Russia invaded Ukraine.
“What’s very different here from other times is that at the higher prices, you still had availability,” he said. “What’s different now is that we’re getting to a point where as you pull that molecule out of the system, it has a big impact on growth.”
Currie compared it to recent squeezes on rare earth supplies impacting car manufacturing.
Rare earths were the raw material that went into magnets in car doors, Currie said, “and you take the battery out or you took the magnet out, you shut down Detroit,” Currie said.
He made an analogy to recent increases in copper prices. Copper production is dependent on sulfuric acid, and restrictions on sulfur exports out of the Middle East means that sulfuric acid markets have been squeezed as well.
“(Markets) are not going to pay attention until it actually creates real shortages and forces them to,” Currie said.
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The post Six out of seven weeks: diesel benchmark down again appeared first on FreightWaves.
LX Pantos Americas has signed separate development Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership and the Port of Virginia.
The unit of the South Korean forwarder said that agreements will deepen LX Pantos Americas’ investment in the mid-Atlantic state, aiming to establish a strategic framework for collaboration that will strengthen operations, enhance visibility and enable long-term growth.
Pantos ranked in the top 10 of global forwarders with volume of 1.54-1.57 million twenty foot equivalent units (TEUs)in 2025. It had revenue of $5.8 billion in 2024,
The MOU covers operational coordination, infrastructure investment, data integration and talent development.
“These agreements mark an important milestone for our companies and reflect the shared trust, vision and long-standing commitment among our teams,” said David Bang, chief executive of LX Pantos Americas, in a statement. “We are proud to partner with organizations that share our focus on progress and innovation. By joining forces, we are uniquely positioned to enhance logistics operations, strengthen infrastructure readiness and support long-term ecosystem development in the Commonwealth of Virginia, driving
meaningful and lasting impact.”
The company this month opened new U.S. headquarters in Teaneck, N.J.
“We are grateful for the confidence LX Pantos Americas is putting in The Port of Virginia and we are excited about the opportunity to grow our partnership with this expanding worldwide logistics company,” said Sarah J. McCoy, new CEO and executive director of the Virginia Port Authority, also in a statement. “The port team is ready to collaborate with the LX Pantos Americas team and help the company capitalize on the investments we are making at this port.”
Read more articles by Stuart Chirls here.
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The post One of the world’s largest freight forwarders just signed a new ‘milestone’ agreement with a major East Coast port appeared first on FreightWaves.
In 1966, Canadian Pacific Railway had a problem. Empty boxcars were piling up in Eastern Canada with no payload for the return trip west. The solution was a small freight company called Fastfrate, created specifically to fill those cars with less-than-truckload shipments bound for Western Canada.
Six decades later, that single-service operation has become one of North America’s largest privately held supply chain providers as a group of seven companies spanning intermodal, truckload, drayage, warehousing, e-commerce fulfillment, final-mile delivery, international freight forwarding, and customs brokerage, operating across more than 46 locations in Canada, the United States, and Mexico.
The transformation was orchestrated over a period of decades by Ron Tepper, the executive chairman who first acquired Fastfrate in 1994 and has guided every major inflection point since, including selling to private equity, buying the company back, and assembling an acquisition portfolio that has reshaped what the company can offer shippers across the continent.
“We’ve been a favored son of CP Rail since the beginning,” Tepper said in an interview with FreightWaves. “Our facilities began as a boxcar operation which provided one-way moves and no balance requirements.”
The intermodal pivot
The first major turning point came in the late 1990s. As railways anticipated surging demand from China’s manufacturing boom, CP Rail’s leadership told Fastfrate it was time to move away from boxcars entirely.
“In 1998, railways foresaw huge demand from China,” Tepper said. “Senior execs who worked closely with China foresaw the effects the Chinese market would have on shipping, both east to west and west to east. It wasn’t a question. We were told to move away from the boxcars, to make ourselves an intermodal operation.”
The mandate carried risk. Fastfrate needed to build crossdock facilities across the country (Halifax, Winnipeg, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Vancouver) and buy a facility in Montreal. At the time, the company wasn’t sure it could absorb the investment. But Tepper made the bet, and it paid off in two ways: Fastfrate became the first major Canadian LTL carrier to convert fully to intermodal, capturing significant market share before competitors followed suit, and the real estate portfolio it built adjacent to CP Rail yards has appreciated dramatically as Canadian urban land values have climbed.
“We were the first major player in the LTL space to convert to intermodal from boxcar,” Tepper said. “Within two years, every other major Canadian carrier converted, but we gained a good market share and grew organically.”
That intermodal conversion also created a new business line. As Fastfrate moved from boxcars to containers, it needed trucks to haul those containers between rail yards and customers, so it built Canada Drayage Inc. (CDI) in 1999.
“Today, we’re the only drayage provider that covers from Halifax to Vancouver,” Tepper said. “We have over 600 trucks doing OTR shipping to meet the needs of our shippers from end to end. We didn’t buy that business, we built it, and we’re proud of that.”
The buyback and the build-out
Tepper sold 75% of Fastfrate to Fenway Equities in 2007. He retained a quarter of the company through a difficult stretch from 2009 to 2017, then bought back full ownership. Since regaining control, he has executed a series of acquisitions that systematically filled gaps in Fastfrate’s service portfolio, each one adding a new layer to what has become a fully integrated supply chain network.
In 2021, Fastfrate acquired ASL Distribution Services and Precision Parcel & Package Deliveries. ASL, a 66-year-old company with more than 500,000 square feet of warehouse space, brought integrated warehousing, e-commerce fulfillment, and distribution capability. Precision added final-mile courier services for both B2B and B2C deliveries, handling everything from small parcels to oversized freight.
In 2022, Fastfrate acquired a majority stake in Challenger Motor Freight, one of Canada’s largest cross-border trucking companies, operating more than 1,200 trucks and 3,500 trailers with 500 to 700 border crossings daily. The deal gave Fastfrate full truckload capacity and a major U.S. footprint for the first time.
And in early 2026, Fastfrate closed on Omnitrans Inc., a Montreal-based international freight forwarder and licensed customs broker with more than 230 established trade lanes and a direct operating presence in China. That acquisition extended Fastfrate’s reach all the way back to the point of origin, completing the end-to-end vision.
“We added companies and left them intact so that we could continue adding new services to our company,” Tepper said. “Every purchase has been to add to our services and synergize to become a full end-to-end provider.”
The CPKC backbone
Threading through the entire 60-year story is Fastfrate’s partnership with what is now Canadian Pacific Kansas City, the only single-line rail network connecting Canada, the United States, and Mexico. CPKC’s merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern created a transcontinental rail corridor, and Fastfrate, as the railway’s largest and longest-standing carrier-customer, is uniquely positioned to leverage it.
Fastfrate co-locates with CPKC at intermodal terminals across the continent. In Toronto and Montreal, the two companies have jointly invested in private gate technology (what CPKC calls the “FastPass”) that gives Fastfrate’s drayage trucks dedicated access to rail facilities, bypassing the congestion that can cost other carriers hours per turn. Fastfrate has also dedicated 15 acres of property adjacent to CPKC’s Toronto intermodal facility for a container yard and pre-pull operation.
“Our relationship with CP Rail has been longstanding, and we’ve been close partners since day one,” Tepper said. “I’ve been around for the tenure of four different CP Rail CEOs, and we’ve always maintained a true strategic partnership. We’ve grown our businesses together.”
That partnership now extends into Mexico, where Fastfrate has deployed containers on CPKC’s Mexico Midwest Express service and established operations in Monterrey and Mexico City. Challenger’s automotive freight expertise in serving major customers in the automotive industry aligns directly with the northbound and southbound parts flows that dominate the Mexico corridor.
Revenue diversification and the road ahead
The cumulative effect of Fastfrate’s acquisition strategy is visible in its revenue composition. In fiscal 2020, LTL accounted for nearly 67% of the company’s revenue, with logistics at 11%, drayage at 21%, and warehousing at less than 1%. By its pro-forma 2026 projections, that mix has shifted dramatically: LTL and truckload each represent roughly 22%, logistics accounts for 23%, final mile for nearly 11%, drayage for about 11%, and the newly added freight forwarding and customs brokerage segments contribute a combined 8%.
“We were originally dependent on LTL, but we’ve continually expanded by adding logistics organizations, warehousing, drayage, and final mile,” Tepper said. “We’re no longer dependent on one service. That balance gives us more stability throughout the year and when various external factors affect the market, like international tariffs, weather events, seasonal fluctuations, and so on.”
Looking ahead, Tepper signaled that the company isn’t finished building. Growth into the U.S. and Mexico will continue, particularly as nearshoring trends accelerate cross-border trade flows. And the company is investing in technology such as automated robotic sorting centers, AI-driven empty-mile optimization, and workflow automation to scale operations faster.
Automation and AI investment
At Precision Parcel & Package Deliveries, Fastfrate’s final-mile division, the company is deploying a T-Sort robotic sortation system powered by a fleet of 160 autonomous guided robots. The installation spans a 220-by-85-foot footprint with 312 sorting destinations across nine sortation fingers, capable of processing up to 7,500 parcels per hour. The AGVs navigate via floor-mounted markers, automatically transport parcels from induction stations to destination chutes, and return themselves to self-charging docks, all without manual intervention. Automated print-and-apply labeling and a centralized HMI control station round out the system.
This infrastructure investment reflects where Fastfrate sees the final-mile business heading; as in, higher volumes, faster throughput, and allowing the company to increase capacity for the marketplace as e-commerce fulfillment demand continues to intensify across North America.
The automation push extends well beyond the warehouse floor. Across the broader Fastfrate Group, the company is rolling out a suite of AI-powered tools designed to streamline operations at every customer touchpoint. An AI system now organizes inbound IT helpdesk tickets, routing and prioritizing service requests without manual triage. Another handles live phone inquiries, providing automated shipment tracking to callers. A third tool contacts drivers directly to collect real-time status updates (including position, proximity to destination, and border crossing confirmations) and feeds that information back into Fastfrate’s operational systems automatically.
On the customer-facing side, AI is being deployed to handle email responses for spot quote requests and tracking inquiries.
“We’re also investing in upgraded facilities and all the latest tech,” Tepper said. “With tools like that, we will continue to scale operations faster and faster.”
While Fastfrate started 60 years ago by filling empty boxcars, the next chapter of growth will be powered as much by software as by steel.
But through all the expansion, Tepper returned to the people who made it possible.
“We want our legacy to be one of growth, risk-taking, and taking care of our employees first at all times,” Tepper said. “We have incredibly low turnover, and a lot of 30- and 40-year employees. They’re treated well, and we know that the business has grown on the strength of our employees. You need the right people at the right place to make it all work, and that’s one thing we’ll always be proud of.”
If you’re a U.S. shipper and you’re unfamiliar with the name Fastfrate, Tepper’s message was straightforward.
“We’re coming,” he said. “We’re going to continue growing in Mexico and the U.S. like we have in Canada.”
Click here to learn more about Fastfrate.
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Prologis Ventures has committed to co-anchor the launch of TMV Logistics, a new $200 million venture fund dedicated to maritime and logistics innovation and safety.
With over $235 billion in assets under management, Prologis (NYSE: PLD) holds a critical position in global trade. Anchoring the TMV Logistics fund will allow the company to address maritime-oriented supply chain needs.
“With a global footprint across logistics real estate, we see firsthand how constraints at ports and along maritime corridors ripple through the entire supply chain,” said Will O’Donnell, head of global corporate development and growth at Prologis Ventures. “Investing in maritime innovation is a natural extension of our work to improve flow, visibility and efficiency from port to warehouse at global scale.”
The fund will support pre-seed through Series A companies focusing on infrastructure investments in maritime, shipbuilding, ports and intermodal logistics. Startups addressing areas like autonomy, robotics, operational AI and next-generation fuels are the primary targets.
Early-stage venture capital firm TMV will manage the fund.
“Maritime AI is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and the companies being built right now will set the standards for the next fifty years,” said Soraya Darabi, co-founder and a managing partner at TMV.
The fund is also backed by American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), a provider of classification and certification services for marine and offshore infrastructure.
Anchor partners will also support due diligence and product development, and may become customers of the portfolio companies.
“By combining ABS’s technical leadership with TMV’s early-stage access and ecosystem reach, we are positioning ourselves at the source of innovation that will define safer, more resilient, and higher-performing global fleets, shipyards, and maritime infrastructure,” said John McDonald, ABS chairman and CEO.
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The post Prologis anchors $200M maritime innovation fund appeared first on FreightWaves.
Jacksonville-based AGX Freight has accused R&R Family of Cos., CEO Richard “Rich” Francis and Huntington National Bank of stripping the company of working capital and pushing it into insolvency, according to newly filed lawsuits tied to the growing collapse of the Pittsburgh logistics group.
The litigation marks the latest escalation in the widening fallout surrounding R&R Family of Cos. and its affiliated entities, including R&R Express, RFX and GT Logistics, which collectively employed hundreds of workers and worked with thousands of carriers before operations unraveled earlier this year.
In one lawsuit filed April 10 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Huntington National Bank sued AGX-related entities, alleging they remained jointly liable under an $85 million revolving credit facility shared with other R&R-affiliated borrowers.
The bank alleged AGX entities defaulted after lenders stopped funding advances in late 2025 amid worsening financial conditions across the R&R group.
Huntington alleged the defaults included missed debt payments, failure to timely pay carriers, the transfer of real estate tied to another R&R borrower and written admissions from co-borrowers that they were unable to pay debts as they came due.
The complaint states more than $12 million remained outstanding on the operating loans as of April 9.
However, AGX entities responded with a separate lawsuit filed in Florida state court accusing R&R Express Holdco, Francis and Huntington Bank of improperly exhausting AGX’s borrowing capacity under the shared revolving credit structure.
Related: R&R Family of Cos. faces uncertainty amid exec departure, payment concerns
According to the complaint, AGX alleges that despite maintaining separate accounting and operational controls, it lost access to working capital after Huntington froze advances tied to defaults elsewhere inside the broader R&R lending group.
The Florida complaint alleges AGX and R&R were co-borrowers under the same revolving credit agreement, but claims failures tied to R&R and Francis depleted AGX’s net borrowing capacity and ultimately forced the Jacksonville brokerage to cease operations.
AGX further alleges the shutdown left approximately $3 million owed to independent motor carriers hauling freight on the company’s behalf.
The lawsuits offer one of the clearest public glimpses yet into how the financial distress inside R&R Family of Cos. spread across affiliated entities tied together through a shared asset-backed lending facility.
Related: Former employees detail turmoil before R&R Family of Companies collapsed
Under Huntington’s complaint, AGX entities were part of a larger network of co-borrowers operating under the R&R Express umbrella and were jointly and severally liable for obligations tied to the lending agreement.
AGX, however, alleges the company operated separately and responsibly managed its own borrowing base before losing liquidity because of problems elsewhere within the R&R structure.
The dispute also sheds new light on the increasingly complex web of ownership and financing relationships tied to the R&R collapse.
According to Huntington’s federal complaint, R&R Express Holdco owned 60% of AAGEX Freight Group, AGX’s parent company, while former AGX executive Mike Williams owned the remaining 40%.
The AGX litigation follows several other lawsuits tied to the collapse of R&R Family of Cos., including claims filed by Huntington National Bank, Jimenez Logistics and Vantage Carrier over unpaid freight invoices and outstanding debt obligations.
Related: Lawsuit alleges R&R Family of Companies continued operating while insolvent
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A Texas county jury has handed down a $49 million judgement against a trucking company that may no longer be in business, a figure about halfway between the $10 million minimum size of a verdict considered nuclear and some larger recent cases lost by trucking interests.
The jury verdict came last week in Ector County, Texas, home of the oil-rich city of Odessa. A Texas-based carrier, OPG Logistics, was the company defendant. But the jury also found negligence on the part of the driver, Biorkys Sanchez Fernandez.
According to the summary of the crash from the Houston-based Ammons law firm that represented the family of 29-year-old Steffan Mick who was killed in the crash in January 2025, the truck driven by Fernandez “made an unsafe left turn and caused the crash.” The jury found that both OPG and Sanchez were “grossly negligent,” according to the Ammons firm.
In an email to FreightWaves, a spokesman for the Ammons firm, a practice led by Rob Ammons who successfully argued the case for the Mick family, said OPG had at least eight drivers at the time of the crash. But the attorney for OPG, according to the Ammons firm, had said the company was no longer in business even as a defense was mounted.
An email sent to Kurt Paxson, the attorney with the firm of Mounce Green who represented OPG, had not been replied to by publication time.
According to the Ammons firm, Paxson “argued against liability on the company while admitting that their driver was negligent.” He asked the jury to limit the verdict to an award to $5 million, but instead got about ten times that.
Driver hit with 35% liability
The jury verdict breaks down as $40.5 million in compensatory damages, with 65% assigned to OPG and 35% to the driver. It also awarded $8.5 million in punitive damages, according to the Ammons firm.
A check of FMCA’s SAFER WEB records of OPG Logistics finds no company by that name. A company with a similar name, based in Nebraska–the company in the nuclear verdict was Texas-based–is listed as having one power unit. But its name, OPG Transport LLC, is not the same as the company involved in the Ector County case.
According to the Ammons firm, it had “checked and found documents that seemed to indicate that there is still a trucking company based from the same address.” A representative for that company, according to the spokesman, told the Ammons firm that it was “her partner’s company.”
Is it collectible?
With a verdict that large, and a defendant whose very existence is in doubt, the question can be asked just how much the Mick family and its attorneys will be able to collect.
A recent $81 million verdict and appeal against a company that now is part of Brad Jacobs’ QXO was ultimately settled. That’s an example of the most collectible types of verdicts: a publicly-traded company as the defendant.
By contrast, a more than $400 million verdict from 2020 against a carrier with one power unit was expected to result in a payout of no more than $1 million under the company’s liability coverage. Whatever insurance coverage OPG carried would be expected as core to any post-verdict settlement talks.
Besides the recent QXO-related verdict, which actually dates back to before QXO (NYSE: QXO) acquired Beacon Roofing Supply, other nuclear verdicts in recent years that came down against companies where collection might be possible was the $460 million award against trailer builder Wabash National (NYSE: WNC), later settled for an unknown figure, and a more than $40 million award last year against carrier New Prime for a wreck in Texas. That case is on appeal.
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The post Nuclear verdict alert: almost $50M against a mystery Texas trucking company appeared first on FreightWaves.
