As we head into the Memorial Day weekend, Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, toted up the cost: “It looks as though we’ll pay about $1.5 billion to $1.6 billion each day during the four-day Memorial Day weekend, and that adds up to $6 billion to $6.4 billion in U.S. motor fuel expense,” he said. “That compares with about $2 billion for the total Memorial Day weekend six years ago.”

With consumers paying about $1 billion more each day for gasoline than they did six years ago, Kloza said, “You really wonder how much the U.S. consumer can take.” And he added that the “more insidious increases are in the diesel segment … A back-of-the-envelope extrapolation would put diesel and heating-oil costs at about $807 million per day currently vs. about $217 million six years ago.”

Net result: “We are seeing numerous bankruptcies among small and mid-sized trucking firms with more to come,” Kloza forecast grimly.

Source: Oil Back on the Upswing – Small Truckers Going Bankrupt.