News Briefs - Feb. 10
The Latest Headlines:
- UPS to Furlough 100 Pilots, WSJ Reports
- Crude Oil Prices Top $35 a Barrel on Distillate Shortage
- Swift Transportation Improves 4Q Earnings
- Volvo Cuts Costs, Posts 4Q Profit
- MAN CEO Predicting Truck Unit Profit in 2003
- Survey Says Gas Prices Rose About 11 Cents in Two Weeks
- U.S. Unemployment Fell to 5.7% in January
- Crude Oil Prices Top $35 a Barrel on Distillate Shortage
UPS to Furlough 100 Pilots, WSJ Reports
United Parcel Service Inc. said last week that it will furlough as many as 100 pilots in an effort to overcome slumping shipment volumes, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.The move could affect nearly 4% of the company’s 2,515 pilots, the paper said. The cuts are the first furlough that the Atlanta-based delivery company has enacted since it started its own airline in 1988.
The company said it considered job cuts instead of furloughs, but said it chose the latter because it believes freight volumes may rebound soon, the paper said.
Crude Oil Prices Top $35 a Barrel on Distillate Shortage
The price of crude oil jumped 23 cents a barrel in trading early Monday morning to a new two-year high on tightening supplies of distillate fuels, Bloomberg said.On the New York Mercantile Exchange, the 23-cent increase put crude oil prices at $35.35 a barrel. Across the Atlantic on the International Petroleum Exchange in London, Brent crude – the benchmark for two-thirds of the world’s oil supply – rose 36 cents a barrel to $32.70, Bloomberg reported.
The price of crude oil has risen 52% in the past year, in part due to concerns about a war in the oil-rich Middle East.
In its report on inventories last week, the Department of Energy said supplies of distillates, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, are at their lowest point in 20 months after declining 14% so far in 2003. Transport Topics
Swift Transportation Improves 4Q Earnings
Swift Transportation Co. Inc. said Friday that its fourth-quarter earnings increased to $20 million or 24 cents per share in 2002, from $13 million or 15 cents a share during the previous fourth quarter.The Phoenix-based company said that during the last quarter of 2002, it generated revenues of $560.1 million, up 5.5% from the $530.7 million it reported in the same quarter in 2001. Swift said that its quarterly results include $16.5 million in revenue from fuel surcharges, up from the $9.5 million the surcharges generated in 2001.
For the full year, the truckload carrier posted earnings of $63.5 million or 73 cents a share in 2002 on $2.1 billion in revenues.
Swift is ranked No. 13 on the 2002 Transport Topics 100 listing of the largest trucking companies in the United States and Canada. Transport Topics
(Click here for the full press release.)
Volvo Cuts Costs, Posts 4Q Profit
Truck maker Volvo AB said Feb. 7 that it had net income of $75 million or 18 cents a share in the fourth quarter after posting a loss in the fourth quarter of 2001.The Swedish company said that its closing of a U.S. factory and the elimination of 7,100 jobs helped reverse its fourth-quarter loss of $57.4 million or 14 cents a share it suffered in 2001.
Volvo said that in the fourth quarter, sales fell 5.7% to $5.4 billion. Transport Topics
MAN CEO Predicting Truck Unit Profit in 2003
The chief executive officer of MAN AG, Rudolf Rupprecht, said that he expects the German company’s truck manufacturing unit to return a profit in 2003, Bloomberg reported Monday.Rupprecht made his comments to the German newspaper Die Welt, Bloomberg said. He told the paper that the truck unit’s profit will come from cost cutting that the company has undertaken recently.
MAN projected the Western European truck market will be about 288,000 in 2003 and that it would increase its market share to more than 15% over the course of 2003, Bloomberg said. Transport Topics
Survey Says Gas Prices Rose About 11 Cents in Two Weeks
The price of gasoline in the United States has risen about 11 cents a gallon to an average of $1.63, industry analyst Trilby Lundberg said Sunday.On the date of the last Lundberg survey on Jan. 24, the price of gasoline was $1.52 a gallon.
Gasoline, while not the primary fuel for trucking, is an important fuel to some segments of industry.
Lundberg told the Associated Press that an increase in oil production in Venezuela as the strike there ends, warmer weather in the eastern United States and a seasonal decline in crude oil demand may keep oil and fuel prices steady in the coming weeks. Transport Topics
U.S. Unemployment Fell to 5.7% in January
The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 5.7% in January, the Labor Department said Feb. 7.Labor said that during the month, companies added 143,000 workers to their payrolls – the first increase in payrolls since October.
Analysts said that the report indicates that businesses are starting to rehire, which may be a harbinger of an economic recovery, Bloomberg reported. Transport Topics
