The last few years we’ve experienced low fuel Costs. That is likely about to change. Lee tells you how to prepare yourself so you aren’t left holding the bag.
What’s going on guys? Everybody doing good on the Saturday afternoon. Just finished up getting some lunch. I’ve been working this morning, getting a blog post written up. It should be posted on junkremovalauthority.com here soon. I had a pretty busy day today at Raleigh location. It has been real busy. Charlotte location has been pretty busy. Greensboro had a couple jobs going on, one was fairly large. Good day so far. Yesterday was kind of a rough day in a way, but we pushed through it. That’s the key right there is to push through it. What I will talk to everybody today about is, I don’t know if you probably noticing this, but a gas prices are on the rise. They’re headed up, oil Barrels. I didn’t see the final close price. So, I’m looking down at my truck.
I got these guys coming to wash my truck once a month. They wash, detail and doing everything. I was checking it out down there. Looks like they’re done yet I’m going to head back. I’m on the way. I’m in my wife’s Jeep right now. Fuel prices, I think the oil barrel price ended at $70 a barrel. U.S. crude was $70 a barrel. I think it finished at $70. I looked about $3.30 but it could have changed a little. Gas prices have not caught up with the crude oil price yet. They’re on the way. There are probably to $2.60 a gallon, average or regular here. I’m not positive what diesel is. I hadn’t looked at diesel. I haven’t looked at our diesel report, but you start watching fuel prices. If that oil barrel price gets to about $90 a barrel. We’re going to be seeing $3-gallon gas. This gas or diesel, probably about $3.15 or so.
That’s in North Carolina. Depending where you are and your state taxes then it’s going to be different. You need to watch your fuel prices. You need to be watching your fuel cost. If your fuel percentages get up to 7% to 8%, 8% especially your prices are going to have to go up. You’re going to have to raise your prices at that point. Don’t let this surprise you. Don’t be slow to get your prices up. A lot of you all aren’t watching your P and L. You’re not getting the daily update on your P and L. A lot of you doesn’t do a monthly update on your profit and loss statement. You’re going to have to watch your fuel costs or your profit and margins are going to get crushed. Really crunched down and get real tight. So, fuel will not be going to kill you, but it will increase your percentages significantly. So, keep an eye on these fuel costs. Hopefully, they’re going to come back down. I’m worried that they’re not talking a whole lot about this infrastructure bill, but the economy is doing well now. We’re full employment. Construction is doing good. China’s economy is turning a corner. So, there’s going to be a real big. You’ve got OPEC, OPEC had been making a whole lot of money. Those companies have been making, they are making good money but not as much as they’d like to make over these past 2 to 3 years. The past 2 to 3, they get a lot of profits. They’re going to be trying to get back out. United States, we’re drilled as much as we can right now and as hard as we can.
I believe the US is now the world’s largest oil producer. Not Export, but oil producer. It used to be If prices have gotten to a certain level, that means the oil wells would come online in the US. That was for the last few years. All wells will come online in the US and that would kind of keep us put a ceiling on prices. That’s not the case right now guys. We are drilling as hard as we can drill. The U.S. has drilled right now. We got some other sites, offshore drilling and there’s some other sites that we have potential to get to. If oil prices go high enough, with a favorable congress and president. We could eventually get that, but it’s going to be years out. There is not that limiting factor on an oil production to keep prices down. I anticipate them to go up.
If we put this trillion-dollar infrastructure bill through, that our president wants to put through. Prices are going to go way up at that point because construction is going to be going so crazy. It’s going to require a lot of fuel. Demand are going to be high. They’re going to jack the prices up.
Watch your fuel expenses. We are seeing inflation. I’m warning everybody, inflation is happening. Watch it or your prices are going to get killed. You have to start paying your people more. You’ll need to raise your prices up because your expenses are about to be going up as well. Your fuel is going to go up. Your labor cost is going to go up. Your supply costs are going to start to go up. For suppliers, I don’t have to start paying more for their people.
Inflation is kicking in and we’re seeing the beginning signs of it. If fuel prices go up, we’re going to have big time inflation. So, watch your P and L. I talked about it the other day. That video did not get a lot of views. It should’ve gotten a bunch. You all want to be serious and have a serious business in junk removal. You don’t want to go ride a truck all day and picking stuff up then that’s fine. Go for it. If you want a serious business, you have to start paying attention to your financial statements. Your fuel prices and all your other expenses, they were about to go up so be ready for it. We’ll talk to everybody real soon. We’ll talk about something else. I will post another little video later on today. Thanks!