RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the fallout could mean an increase in gas prices here in America.
Robert Hanfield, Professor of Supply Chain Management at North Carolina State University, said the higher the price of gas, the bigger the impact on the economy.
“Getting gas is a part of transportation, so it will definitely impact everything that we buy that has to be shipped and transported and distributed,” Handfield said.
From grocery store deliveries to hardware, Handfield said people are likely to see costs go up.
“You get what are called fuel surcharges added onto the cost of freight. So as oil prices go up, very often fuel surcharges are tied to the price of oil and the price of gas, so those will go up, so those will be passed on to consumers likely.”
Rising gasoline prices is not something truck drivers like Ethan E. are looking forward to. He drives all around to country to deliver goods.
“It will impact. I am a lease driver so I’m responsible for my own gas. Company drivers they get their gas paid for,” he said.
Daryle Hambrick is a truck driver out of Tennessee.
“I’m just curious to see how much higher it’s going to go,” Hambrick said.
Transportation isn’t the only industry that could be impacted.
“We could see natural gas prices go up, which means we would pay more for heating our homes and pay more for other industrial products that use a lot of gas — particularly in petrochemicals,” Hanfield said.
“One of the other real concerns is a lot of minerals that are used in semiconductors are mined from Ukraine and Russia. And so if they put a halt on those exports, that could shut down some chip manufacturers which could in turn restrict production of semiconductor chips.”