Heavy-Lift: Driver shortage hampers heavy-haul trucking recovery - JOC.com

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Truck drivers with the skills to drive specialized super-heavy transport are becoming a rare breed. Photo credit: Shutterstock.com.

Heavy-haul transport slowed to a crawl when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, but is rebounding today as US energy projects pick up steam. However, driver shortages and rapidly rising equipment costs are complicating that promising outlook.

Houston-based Atlas Heavy Transport, which specializes in super-heavy, super-wide loads for liquefied natural gas (LNG) refineries and the aerospace industry, sees a bright road ahead as project-related work continues to come in, general manager Jamie Nettles told JOC.com. Atlas recently moved a 600 metric ton steel drum 300 miles for a new customer, he said, and the sunny outlook has prompted the company to buy more trailers and open a new facility in Huntsville, Alabama.

But the driver shortage is increasingly troublesome, and “if you find a good heavy haul driver, they want almost double their money because they know the market is tight,” Nettles said.

Chris Sobba, general counsel for Houston-based heavy-haul carrier Palletized Trucking, said heavy-haul carriers are guaranteeing minimum weekly pay and higher salaries for experienced drivers, but throwing money at the problem is not solving it. “Volume is definitely picking up, but driver shortage is challenging our ability to service customers,” he said.

Heavy-haul and specialized trucking drivers are an aging work force, Sobba said. “There is a generation of people today who don’t want to be on the road,” he said. “We’re looking for guys who don’t have a family.”

Since the second quarter of 2021, the heavy-haul market has seen “a full rebound — and then some,” Kerry Byrne, president of TQL, a Cincinnati-headquartered heavy-haul brokerage firm, told JOC.com. “We expect the pent-up demand from COVID-19 of construction and infrastructure transportation to continue,” he said. “Typically, Q4 is a slow season, but we are not expecting [demand] to subside.”

Longer term, Byrne anticipates “significant long-term demand with nationwide infrastructure projects driven by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.”

No quick fix

However, there will be no quick fix for the driver shortage, or, from the brokers' perspective, a tight supply of specialized carriers, Byrne said. “We are really focused on maintaining strong relationships with our existing carrier partners,” he said.

Heavy-haul rates are at historic highs, and “there is so little room to negotiate with carriers right now, particularly with highly specialized equipment like double-drops, expandable step-decks, and removable gooseneck trailers,” Byrne said.

While rates are rising, so is the cost of equipment, even as delivery dates slide. Super-heavy carrier Omega Morgan, based in Portland, Oregon, operates 60 tractors and 100 trailers and has seen steady growth over most of the course of the pandemic, COO Erik Zander told JOC.com. However, the availability of new tractors is complicating the picture.

“We’re getting quotes today that are 20 percent higher than a quarter ago — with no guarantee that it is actually a fixed price with a delivery of Q4 of 2022,” Zander said. For used specialized equipment such as trailers, “we used to get deliveries in six months and now it’s getting to be nine months,” he said.

Wind energy cargo continues to be a backbone cargo for specialized heavy haulers and “the future looks bright,” said John Hall, operational manager for American Wind Transport Group of Pittsburgh. “Every time we have a new president come in, wind can be a little off, but this [Biden] administration is different, and we have all the tax credits [to help fund wind farm construction] that we need.”

Hall said port congestion hasn’t affected his company, as the carrier avoids congested West Coast ports such as Los Angeles, Long Beach, and San Diego. “We’re working Houston and Galveston and while we’ve had to wait two or three days for a ship to dock, it has not been a major issue,” he said. “With our loads and cargoes, the problems are just maneuvering around the port yards.”

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