How Fuel Issues Affect the Marine Towing Industry
These past few years have seen a number of fuel issues, including shortages, price hikes, and other complications. The marine towing industry isn’t immune. In fact, we’re especially vulnerable because every project we take on involves a vessel that will cost more to operate. That’s only the beginning, of course. Here are a few ways that marine towing services and related industries may be affected:
Higher Prices
The most obvious way that fuel issues affect the marine towing industry is that their prices are forced to go up. Dann Ocean Towing prides itself on being very competitive in the industry, but even we must eventually deal with higher fuel prices. No matter the price of fuel, you can still rely on Dann Ocean Towing to provide the same high-quality services.
Business Costs
Whenever fuel prices spike or reserves dwindle, all types of businesses feel the squeeze. Marine towing companies are forced to deal with higher operational costs, sometimes being forced to pass those along. This can trickle down to businesses, especially small companies that depend on products being delivered by barge.
Ripple Effect
As we learned from the supply chain problem, there’s often a ripple effect. First, the marine towing industry is forced to raise its prices. Then, the companies that they’re assisting may need to raise their prices because they’re being charged more to move products or vessels. This, in turn, raises costs for consumers and may cause them to tighten their wallets a bit. When this happens, consumers may cut back on what they’re buying, causing the ripple effect to go back up the chain and start over again.
Worker Layoff
The ripple effect mentioned above can sometimes lead to the worst scenario, which is worker layoffs. This is a reality that no one wants to face, including the marine towing industry. Unfortunately, when fuel costs get out of hand and fewer people are in need of services, there may be an employee reduction. Very often, this ends up only being a temporary measure, but it’s one that can affect many thousands of people throughout all industries.
How Dann Ocean Towing Handles Fuel Issues
No one likes to deal with higher fuel prices. There’s really no upside for businesses or consumers. The team behind Dann Ocean Towing is somewhat limited in what we’re able to do, but we make a solid effort to reduce the effect of higher prices.
Here are some of the ways that we deal with fuel issues when they occur:
Up-Front Pricing
Dann Ocean Towing has always been very upfront about our pricing. When our fuel prices rise and we’re forced to raise our service prices, we’ll inform our customers right away. Very often, fuel price hikes don’t last forever, so we’ll also lower our prices when we’re able to do so. We feel this gives our customers confidence that we’re doing the right thing and not taking advantage of the situation.
Better Efficiency
The truth is that Dann Ocean Towing always strives to be as efficient as possible. Whenever there’s a change in the industry, including higher fuel costs, we look at what we’re already doing and try to figure out if there’s a way we can be more efficient so that it evens out for our customers. This is actually something we do on a routine basis, but we may dig just a little deeper just to be sure.
Astounding Service
Customers never like to pay higher prices, no matter what the reason. They may say that it’s understandable because everyone is affected by fuel price increases, but it can still leave a bad taste in their mouth. To counteract this, we make sure that we’re always providing astounding service every step of the way. Again, this is something we already do, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention it.
New Technologies
Believe it or not, but the marine towing industry is just as interested in “going green” as anyone else. We’d love it more than anything if we could move away from traditional fuel and into something more eco-friendly and less costly for consumers. Right now, there are zero-emission towing vessels being tested. Once they reach a point where it’s feasible to integrate them into our fleet, we definitely will.
Dann Ocean Towing provides Marine Towing Services
Dann Ocean Towing is an industry leader in marine construction, salvage and rescue, and other marine towing services. If you have any questions about our team or fleet or are in need of our services, reach out to us at (813) 251-5100 today.
