SÃ O PAULO—Brazilian truckers partially closed highways in at least eight states Tuesday to call for lower fuel prices and better financing conditions as their actions continued for a second day.

Brazil's Federal Highway Police said that at 3:00 p.m. Sã o Paulo time, protesters had closed highways to trucks at 18 points in the states of Minas Gerais, Paraná , Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Santa Catarina and Tocantins.

The truckers are allowing cars, buses and ambulances through their blockades, the police said.

Earlier in the day there were also blockades on highways in the states of Ceará and Goiá s, and truckers protested on several highways in the states of Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul without closing the roads.

The protests are being organized by the National Transport Command, a group representing truckers. A representative of the group couldn't be reached for comment.

On its Facebook page, the group is calling for the government to lower the price of diesel fuel, which has gone up twice in the past year.

State-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, raised the wholesale price of diesel fuel 4% in September, and the government raised its tax on diesel fuel by 0.15 real (4 U.S. cents) per liter in February.

The Facebook page als called for the government to make good on a promise to permit truckers to take longer to pay back loans for their vehicles, among other things.

The truckers' actions are intended to hurt the government, presidential spokesman Edinho Silva said Monday. The government is always open to dialogue, but truckers haven't presented any demands, he said.

The strike so far isn't affecting the flow of goods through the country's biggest ports. Brazil's busiest port, Santos in the state of Sã o Paulo, said truckers are arriving and leaving normally.

A spokeswoman for the port of Paranaguá , in the state of Paraná , said that the port is operating normally, but that only about 10% of the trucks scheduled to unload had arrived Tuesday. The port has enough cargo in warehouses to continue operating at full capacity for about another 15 days, she said.

Write to Jeffrey T. Lewis at jeffrey.lewis@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 10, 2015 14:45 ET (19:45 GMT)

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