Importance of Oil Price in Freight Transport Costs

Abstract

Le petrole fournit la quasi-totalite du carburant pour les transports. Or le prix du petrole brut (FOB-Free on board) ne constitue pour l’instant qu’une petite partie des couts du transport, moins du cinquieme. Les quatre cinquiemes des couts du transport proviennent des frais d’exploitation, des salaires et de la fiscalite. Neanmoins, si la rarefaction du petrole venait a faire exploser les couts du carburant, elle produirait des effets negatifs forts. Une multiplication par 8 du prix du petrole (par rapport a 2007) doublerait le cout des transports de marchandises. Toutefois la hausse de couts serait suffisamment uniforme pour que les exploitants puissent les repercuter sur les clients sans que la concurrence ne soit profondement modifiee. Les petits exploitants ne pouvant pas s’organiser pour optimiser les chargements et les itineraires seraient les plus menaces. La mobilite des personnes serait par contre tres touchee sur deux aspects : la voiture particuliere et l’aviation. Le cas de l’aviation est bien connu (surtaxes kerosene), par contre le probleme du transport individuel –qui consomme environ la meme quantite de carburant que l’aviation par passager et par kilometre- risque d’aboutir a une societe ou seuls les citoyens les plus aises restent reellement mobiles. Importance of Oil Price in Freight Transport Costs Oil is the main component of transport fuel. As for now, however, crude oil price (FOB-Free on board) accounts for less than a fifth of transport costs. Operating costs, wages and taxes cause the remaining four fifths. Nevertheless, oil scarcity may raise fuel costs to such a level that transport companies and citizen may suffer significant adverse impacts. A multiplication by 8 of the price of oil (compared to 2007) would double road transport cost. Yet, the rise would be global, which would enable operators to shift the cost to their clients without suffering changes in competition. Still, small operators that would not be in a position to optimize truck loads and routes would be threatened. Major oil price rise would mainly affect two aspects of mobility: aviation and private motoring. Air companies have added a special oil charge to ticket cost while changes in private motoring, which uses approximately as much fuel as air per passenger – kilometre, may lead to a situation where only the wealthiest citizens may keep driving.

Original document

The different versions of the original document can be found in:

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/235522325515

• https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/importance-du-prix-du-petrole-dans-le-prix-du-transport-de-marchandises_5kzbz94ch26j.pdf?itemId=%2Fcontent%2Fpaper%2F235522325515&mimeType=pdf

• https://ideas.repec.org/p/oec/itfaaa/2008-4-fr.html,

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/fr/transport/importance-du-prix-du-petrole-dans-le-prix-du-transport-de-marchandises_235522325515,

https://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=987169,

https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:itfaaa:2008/4-fr,

https://academic.microsoft.com/#/detail/1987464502