TORONTO — Everybody’s tired of old adages so here’s a new one.

If you’re tired of oil speculators reaping obscene profits off the backs of consumers, do a bit of hedging to protect yourself. That’ll fix ya.

And here’s how.

Last August, Today’s Trucking magazine printed a story about buying diesel contracts.

The story featured an interview with Bob Tebbutt, an investor and hedging specialist with PEREGRINE FINANCIAL GROUP CANADA, INC. in Toronto. He’s been  specializing in options and futures longer than anybody else in the country  and last year, he told us that if a carrier used at least 84,000 gals of diesel every month to fuel a fleet, he (Tebbutt) could help the trucker save big money on fuel price.

That was then.

Since that time, diesel has risen by almost $1.50 a gallon. Had you taken his advice and bought a futures contract for 42,000 gal of diesel he says you could have saved, oh, about $70,000.

If you’d wanted his less risky product (options), you would have saved about $62,000 on 42,000 gallons of diesel between the time of the story being published and now.

(At this point, you might be thinking "Okay, so how do I contact this guy?" You can reach him at rtebbutt@pfgcan.com.)

The thing is, with futures and options contracts you can lock in oil prices and bet against them going up.

"If somebody called me last year [when the story appeared] and bought futures, he would have locked in diesel at $2.08 a gallon," Tebbutt says. "Since then, the price has increased by $1.6485. Times that by 42,000 gallons and you would have saved $69,237 on a that contract.

"If he’d bought options, it would have been $1.4885 times 42,000, or $62,517 difference."

Tebbutt says the hedger could have taken the difference, put it in the bank and used to to offset the huge oil-price increase that most people are paying.

"He’d basically be saving $1.64 off a $3.68 gallon of diesel."

Should you be thinking of buying diesel futures? Do you think the price of the stuff’s going to go down?