El Paso companies feeling the spike in oil prices
EL PASO, Texas – As oil prices continue to spike in the country, one El Paso transportation company has felt that extra cost.
Mesilla Valley Transportation is a transportation company in the Southwest. According to their website, they are the largest, privately owned transportation fleet in the United States.
One of the founders of MVT, Royal Jones, says he has experienced that price hike in the last few days.
He has over 1,500 trucks. According to Jones, the company uses up to two million gallons of fuel per month.
He said that the recent price hike has led them to pay an extra 2 million dollars in fuel charges.
Jone said the trucks they have are good since they don’t burn as much fuel. However, they can't stop transporting goods since they have to pay for the building, make trailer payments and other pay for other costs.
Jones said that in the past year, their rates have gone up 20 percent. He said that from the beginning of the year alone they have had to raise their prices between five to eight percent.
Jones says as the price of fuel goes up, so does the price to transport goods and that translates to higher product prices.
Andrea Ramirez, the CEO of Amistad, said that they are also feeling the effects of the unprecedented price soar.
Amistad is a social service agency since 1976. They agency helps advocate, connect and deliver social services to the community.
One of their essential services is helping those sick get to their treatments like dialysis and chemotherapy.
Ramirez says the company has 35 fully maintained trucks that are ready to be used. The majority of these trucks are used for medical services.
The CEO said that most people receive this service for free since they qualify. Those who have to pay a fee only a pay a small fare.
The agency is struggling to keep this service going.
“They need us. If we are not there to transport them, who is going to transport them? We have a duty to protect, but it is coming at an extreme cost and I have been yelling at the rooftop saying help, help us! I have been going to the large brokers, I have been going to our partners and saying help us," said Ramirez"
Ramirez said that right now there aren’t many drivers and those who were working received a wage increase.
“We are dealing with a lot of costs, it's not something that we necessarily projected, but it is all coming down at once. We are just managing that as we can,” Ramirez said.
Ramirez wants this service to continue.
"There have been moments where I have been like what are we going to do for medical transportation. Like I said before it is a very expensive program to run with a little bit of revenue coming in over the last years. We have lost a lot of money and we put in more than we get out," Ramirez said.
