Well, oil futures have recently "plummeted" to a mere $98 per barrel or so, a level that as I noted a couple of months ago that seemed like the end of the world less than five years ago. Now we complain but take it pretty much in stride.
Though some are predicting will reach $150 or so again before too long, and others citing even higher figures over the coming years, I am not so sure about that. First, in the US at least, $4.00 per gallon of gasoline does seem to be some sort of upward bound that leads to changing consumer behavior and thus demand destruction that acts as a counterbalance to upward pressures on price. Not sure if this is the same elsewhere - did you know, for example, that China significantly subsidizes gas prices for consumers and truckers?
I will also note that we are in this sort of terrible place where the most likely way we will drive oil prices back down is through a slowdown in the economy. So, if you want the lukewarm recovery to continue and maybe even expand, it has to be a the cost of higher oil prices. But higher oil prices cause the economy to contract.... my head hurts. I had one economics class as an undergrad, and one in grad school. Don't think I will drag out the textbooks to try to sort all that out.
All I do know is that transportation is a huge element of supply chain costs, representing 6% or so of US GDP and even higher level in many countries, that rising oil prices add significantly to the cost of moving goods, and capacity pressures are also coming into play.
So, what can shippers do about that? I amazed at the sophistication of supply chain professionals today, so most probably know all these ideas presented below and more, but perhaps it is handy to have them in one place anyways.
One useful framework for any supply chain challenge, but I think especially so for rising transport costs, is to identify all the drivers of transportation spend and divide them into three categories: