Fuel

Crude oil futures prices declined Wednesday after Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that he will release 15 captured British sailors, news services reported.

Air freight and cargo company Kitty Hawk Inc. said Tuesday it earned $8.3 million or 15 cents a share in the fourth quarter, compared with a loss of $4.1 million or 8 cents a year earlier.

Air cargo shipments inched up 0.6% in February, the Air Transport Association said late Monday.

The Supreme Court Monday ordered the federal government to take a new look at regulating carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, in a rebuke to the Bush administration’s policy on global warming, the Associated Press reported.

Air and ocean freight forwarder UTi Worldwide's fourth-quarter net income rose to $23.6 million or 24 cents a share, from $9.7 million or 10 cents a year earlier.

The U.S. EPA said last week that diesel engine manufacturers who want to use selective catalytic reduction to meet EPA’s 2010 emission rules must supply the urea SCR requires and prove it will be available to truck drivers using those engines.

A loosening of the tight capacity for freight hauling now makes the fuel-surcharge programs — upon which motor carriers depend to insulate them from fuel price spikes — vulnerable to demands for change by shippers.

The U.S. average retail price of diesel fuel dipped by 0.5 cent to $2.676 a gallon last week, its second straight tiny decline, the Department of Energy said.

Crude oil futures rose to more than $64 a barrel in early trading Wednesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the seventh straight trading day of increases, Bloomberg reported.