HOUSTON COUNTY, Ga. — An incoming diesel fuel shortage could soon be impacting your wallet.
A major fuel delivery provider issued a "supply alert," warning of the shortage in the Southeast.
Georgia farmers like Donald Chase could soon enter yet another challenging scenario.
"It's going to be really critical for, I guess, the whole farm community for the next couple of weeks and maybe another month," Chase said.
A fuel delivery company, Mansfield Energy, predicts a diesel fuel shortage will soon cause problems throughout the southeast.
They issued a supply alert last week that says "poor pipeline shipping economics and historically low diesel inventories are combining to cause shortages in various markets."
"Farmers are used to facing challenges of one type of another," Chase said.
Georgia Agricultural Commissioner Gary Black predicts the shortage will cause fuel prices to rise.
"When energy prices are up, you naturally see the cost of goods, all consumer goods rising. We are already seeing that at the grocery store and we are going to see it across the shelves for consumer goods ahead of Christmas. It is just an unfortunate fact," Black said.
Black says multiple factors are causing the shortage.
"Poor decisions made in geopolitical circles with respect to Ukraine. That's opened up a whole myriad of problems internationally," Black said.
Chase runs a 600-acre farm in Macon County. They grow peanuts and sweet corn. They also have a poultry farm.
He says he uses about 10,000 gallons of off-road diesel in a year.
"I'm a fairly small farm in terms of size. It is a big item," Chase said, but he says there isn't a "great sense of panic in the agriculture community."
"For us, we are kind of past our peak harvest season, but for a lot of farmers, they are still harvesting cotton and will be for probably sometime into December. I think right here, I've been assured by our suppliers that we will be OK. To be clear, I don't think the public needs to be in a panic and certainly we don't need to be crowding up Buc-ee's and buying extra fuel," Chase said.
According to federal websites, on January 1, 2022, the U.S. had 130 working petroleum refineries. In 2017, there were 141.
Not all oil refineries are experiencing this problem.
13WMAZ asked Mansfield Energy how long this shortage might last.
By email, a spokesman said if we have a cold winter and the European Union goes ahead with its embargo of Russian diesel, "we might see issues throughout the winter."