Dusseldorf The trip to the office left Detlef Benecke in shock that morning, at least that’s what the forwarder from Wittenberge in Brandenburg says. The gas station in town asked for 2.34 euros per liter at the diesel pump, 64 cents more than he calculated in his freight contracts at the beginning of January.
The strong trucker with the white-blond hair sits at his fully loaded desk, behind him two green plants on the window sill, and talks himself into a rage. “Even before, we only earned 20 to 60 euros a day on each truck,” he says. “Now we pay 30 to 40 euros more.”
The culprits are the oil price, which has risen sharply since the Ukraine war, speculation on the commodity markets, but also the German tax authorities. In addition to the energy tax of 47 cents, which the state adds to the liter of diesel, around 7.7 cents in CO2 tax have been due since January – 1.5 cents more than in the previous year. 19 percent VAT is added to the total price, so that the tax office earns a lot from the increased diesel prices.
Worried, Benecke looks down through the window at the depot where his company Debe Transporte set up a professional workshop just seven years ago. Every day, the vehicle fleet, a fleet of trucks made up of freezer, bulk goods, tarpaulin and tank trucks from the Iveco and MAN brands, is currently in the red. It is often better to just leave the vehicles where they are, he says. “We decide on a case-by-case basis whether we want to go on the tour at all. Otherwise we are broke.”
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The 59-year-old is just one of 47,000 truck transport companies across Germany who are suffering from rising diesel prices. Annette Weiss, managing partner of Spedition Weiss Transporte on the Swabian Alb, confirms that anyone who moves their vehicle is headed straight for bankruptcy if the diesel price reaches 2.50 euros at the latest.
Truck strikes slow down freeway traffic
On Wednesday last week, truck drivers in North Rhine-Westphalia gave a foretaste of the wave of protests that could be sweeping across Germany. The authorities managed to prevent a truck blockade on the Cologne city motorway by “talking about dangerous people”. But then a dozen trucks honked loudly through the city center of the cathedral city. “Diesel price too high”, they had written on their banners, “You are destroying us all!”
In the Ruhr area, the situation escalated in two places on the same day. According to the police, three trucks slowed the traffic down to walking speed on the A2 near Dortmund, and three trucks blocked the A42 near Gelsenkirchen. Police officers reported that the traffic jams caused three accidents on the freeways.
The forwarding industry is currently suffering particularly from the high diesel prices.
(Photo: imago/Frank Sorge)
Angry freight forwarders on the A10 and A111 also managed to slow down traffic by “creeping” around Berlin. Numerous haulage companies made it clear last week that motorists on Germany’s roads will now have to get used to the reduced truck speed. This is an attempt to at least save some fuel in view of the astronomical diesel prices.
Some competitors, reports the Wittenberg haulage contractor Detlef Benecke, have already shut down part of the vehicle fleet, and a haulage company in nearby Pritzwalk recently closed. There are now seven vehicles at a standstill.
And he himself is also thinking aloud about discontinuing previous routes – with potentially bitter consequences: for a food wholesaler in the neighboring town, he drives regular services to restaurants, supermarkets and canteens throughout Brandenburg. If the tours are canceled, cooking pots and shelves remain empty.
Price adjustment clauses do not work
The speed at which fuel prices have recently skyrocketed is also to blame for the misery. The transport industry usually works with price adjustment clauses, the so-called “diesel floaters”. But, to the chagrin of the hauliers, they only take effect with a delay of weeks.
If the fuel becomes more expensive, they initially have to be patient for six to eight weeks. Only when the Federal Statistical Office subsequently confirms the jump in price can the carriers adjust their freight rates upwards.
Powerful clients such as the postal freight forwarding subsidiary DHL are extremely unimpressed by the misery. “We always treat our suppliers fairly,” says CEO Frank Appel vaguely when asked. The transport companies would simply have to signal a lack of willingness to drive in order to push through price increases in the market. It’s that simple.
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The crux: In view of the low sales margins, which in the past have rarely exceeded the two to three percent mark, many haulage companies probably lack the financial cushion to build up such pressure over a longer period of time.
“The result is,” warns Dirk Engelhardt from the Federal Association of Road Haulage (BGL), “that most companies are probably running out of liquidity these days.” Because the diesel floaters are not designed for price jumps like the last one.
Adblue is also becoming more expensive
According to calculations by the association, truck fuel has become 48 percent more expensive since the beginning of the year. The additive “Adblue”, a natural gas by-product without which a truck will eventually come to a standstill, is hardly affordable anymore. “The talks with our members are dramatic,” Engelhardt summarizes the situation.
Benecke feels betrayed by the state. He blames the “incompetence of politicians” and “capitalism” in general for the disaster – whose freedom he has of course been able to skilfully use in the past three decades. Four months after reunification, the native East German had turned his hobby, glassblowing, into a career. He built up a gift wholesale business around the trade, for which he ordered the first truck in 1993.
“To share the gas costs, I took loads from the neighborhood,” he recalls. Today the gift trade is history, the depot is occupied by 25 trucks and articulated lorries.
For their operation, Benecke has concluded a diesel contract with the tank logistics company Hoyer, which at least still supplies the company headquarters in Wittenberge with comparatively cheap fuel. “But in the summer the quota will be used up,” fears the Brandenburg freight forwarder. “From then on it will be tight for us.”
More: “We are running into a supply collapse”: That’s how big the shortage of truck drivers is in Germany