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Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby vox_mundi » Thu 31 Aug 2017, 10:48:12

Hurricane Harvey: Colonial Pipeline Shuts Down Major Southeast Fuel Line; Gas Prices On the Rise

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https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=25052

Colonial said its facilities west of Lake Charles, Louisiana are out of service due to the storms. That closure, along with hurricane-related shutdowns of refineries in the Gulf Coast, led to the decision to cease operations on Colonial's Line 2, which transports primarily diesel and aviation fuels. Line 1, which carries gasoline, will suspend service today. Line 1 had been operating at a reduced capacity since Harvey hit.

Line 1 provides nearly 40 percent of the South's gasoline.
"Imports can't make up for this," ... "This is going to be the worst thing the U.S. has seen in decades from an energy standpoint."

By volume, Colonial is the largest pipeline operator in the country, delivering more than 100 million gallons of refined products each day to markets between Houston and New York City, serving more than 50 million people. Of the 26 refineries connected to the Colonial system, 13 are located between Houston and Lake Charles, the company said.

Experts said prices could increase as much as 35 cents a gallon as refineries remain offline during storm cleanup.

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https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=25052

Colonial connects directly to several major airports, including Atlanta, Nashville, Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh-Durham, Dulles, and Baltimore-Washington.

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https://www.eia.gov/analysis/transporta ... 0Coast.png
http://www.colonialenergy.com/images/map_newb.jpg

The Explorer Pipeline, which has a capacity of 660,000 barrels a day, said on Wednesday it had shut its main fuel line from Houston to Tulsa, Oklahoma, as supplies dwindled.

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At least two East Coast refineries have already run out of gasoline for immediate delivery as they scrambled to fill barges to markets typically supplied by the Gulf Coast, two refinery sources said. Others were seen operating at higher rates in order to boost profitability by meeting supply shortages.

“I’ve never seen a situation this bad,” said one East Coast market source.

Colonial said earlier it expected outages at its Houston and Hebert area fuel supply points in Texas would likely continue through the weekend as a result of Harvey.

At least 4.4 million bpd of refining capacity were offline, or nearly 24 percent of total U.S. capacity, based on company reports and Reuters estimates. The Gulf is home to nearly half of U.S. refining capacity.


The shutdowns also led the U.S. government to tap its strategic oil reserves for the first time in five years on Thursday, releasing 500,000 barrels of crude to a working refinery in Louisiana.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-stor ... SKCN1BA2Z6


Gas pipelines down: now what for Atlanta pump prices? (Hint: they don’t go down.)

... Thursday morning, the rise of gas prices in metro Atlanta continued and at least one Smyrna station was flirting with $3-a-gallon gas. (Yes, that’s regular.)

The flow of fuel was already reduced, and the price of gasoline in Atlanta is already up an average of 24 cents a gallon during the past nine days, according to AtlantaGasPrices.com, a unit of Gas Buddy.

... N. Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said gas shortages and higher gas prices should be expected.

“This will impact us. We’ve seen it before,” Cooper said. “This is something that is critical. When you have a situation like this the problems go all up and down the pipeline. We’ve seen this happen before with problems with Katrina.”


Harvey-inflicted Gasoline Shortage Spreading in North Texas with Dry Pumps and Lines Common

Hurricane Harvey-fueled gas shortages are starting to spread throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Fearing dry pumps, many drivers bolted to gas stations after work Wednesday to fill up with gasoline and diesel. That run on the pumps continued Thursday morning with many people hitting several stations before finding one that was still stocked.


On Wednesday, there were isolated reports of gas stations outside the Gulf Coast region running out of fuel.

By Thursday, scattered stations across Dallas-Fort Worth were running dry, according to GasBuddy's crowd-sourced Gasoline Availability Tracker. In some cases, those stations briefly ran out of some gasoline but were quickly restocked.

There also have been isolated reports of Kroger gas stations running out of some types of gasoline. Officials at the retailer couldn't be reached Wednesday.

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Dallas Gasoline Prices

... It's difficult to predict when gasoline supplies will return to normal. The extent of the damage to oil refineries isn't known.

And even when they reopen, there are concerns about staffing, because many employees lost everything in the flooding.

"What you've got is a chain and links are missing," ..."I don't know how long it's going to take to repair those."
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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby onlooker » Thu 31 Aug 2017, 12:11:19

https://www.forbes.com/sites/energysour ... 45d0063d90#7845d0063d90

Both the vulnerability and the resilience of this energy delivery network have been illustrated by the two recent incidents on Colonial Pipeline, the latter of which resulted in the tragic death of a pipeline worker in Alabama on October 31.  Colonial is the largest petroleum product pipeline system in the country.  It runs continuously at or near full capacity, delivering about 2.6 million barrels per day via a 5,500-mile system that connects 29 refineries and 267 distribution terminals, moving petroleum products like gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and heating oil from receipt points as far west as Houston, Texas to numerous delivery points between Louisiana and northern New Jersey. To put Colonial’s throughput number in

perspective, the entire Eastern Seaboard––from Maine to Florida––consumes only 5.0 million barrels per day, about 3.2 million barrels per day of which is finished gasoline, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).  Colonial’s volume is about half of those numbers.  Back in 2005, local refineries in the Northeast produced 700,000 barrels per day, but the refining world has changed and a lot of those local refiners have shut down.  Over the past three years, Northeast refineries have averaged a paltry 65,000 barrels per day of
finished gasoline production.  So the balance must come from a combination of Colonial, imports, coastwise cargos and a couple of smaller pipelines.  Obviously, Colonial has become a much bigger deal in Northeast transportation fuel markets.
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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby Plantagenet » Thu 31 Aug 2017, 13:42:50

NPR just reported that this pipeline will be restarted as soon as the post-flood inspection and testing is completed----maybe as soon as monday.

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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby asg70 » Thu 31 Aug 2017, 13:46:08

Plantagenet wrote:NPR just reported that this pipeline will be restarted as soon as the post-flood inspection and testing is completed----maybe as soon as monday.
Cheers!


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-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:
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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby GHung » Thu 31 Aug 2017, 14:03:04

Trump taps emergency U.S. oil reserve after Harvey

The Trump administration has tapped an emergency stockpile of crude oil in response to the major refinery outages in the U.S. Gulf Coast caused by Hurricane Harvey.

The Energy Department said it will send 500,000 barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to the Phillips 66 (PSX) refinery in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Officials said the refinery, which hasn't been shutdown by the historic flooding, requested the release of emergency oil.....

.....The move is aimed at shielding Americans from higher gasoline prices, which have begun to rise sharply due to a shortage of gasoline caused by refinery shutdowns, port closures and oil production outages.

The Energy Department said it will "continue to provide assistance as deemed necessary," including more potential drawdowns from the emergency reserve.

http://money.cnn.com/data/commodities/index.html
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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby shortonoil » Thu 31 Aug 2017, 15:40:42

The Energy Department said it will "continue to provide assistance as deemed necessary," including more potential drawdowns from the emergency reserve.


It looks like we have about 12 days before serious shortages start hitting the East Coast. That is the average wholesaler's usable inventory capacity. Getting enough refinery production running to supply the Colonial in that short of a period of time is going to be difficult, if not outright impossible. Much of their staff have lost their homes, cars, and personal possessions. Many of the roads around Houston are still impassable. Phones, and power are still out for thousands, and may be for weeks. We also have another CAT 4 hurricane heading our way. Let's hope it detours to South America.

In the face of this horrible human crisis, and natural disaster we have to put up with a bunch of insensitive, pathetic, stupid trolls. Their true colors are really flying now!
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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby AdamB » Thu 31 Aug 2017, 15:48:56

shortonoil wrote:[
In the face of this horrible human crisis, and natural disaster we have to put up with a bunch of insensitive, pathetic, stupid trolls. Their true colors are really flying now!


Well, you and your sock puppets could just stop posting? That would cure the problem up right quick!!

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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby Newfie » Thu 31 Aug 2017, 16:03:32

Serious stuff here guys.

Put the sticks and stones away and stay on topic.
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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby GHung » Thu 31 Aug 2017, 17:32:46

Regular unleaded jumped $0.33 since Saturday here.
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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Thu 31 Aug 2017, 18:27:26

GHung wrote:Regular unleaded jumped $0.33 since Saturday here.

And that's what great about liquid, well established markets. Even if imperfect and capitalistic, they send economic signals, and tend to help keep supply and demand relatively balanced, even in times of stress on the system.

And then when the stress is over, the price will strongly tend to return to "normal".

I'd call that a very good thing indeed.

...

Up about 40 cents here since this weekend, and not surprising, IMO. I'd far rather the price end up by a dollar or more if the situation warrants, than artificial government constraints causing long gas lines (and wasting more gas in the process) instead of letting the pricing mechanism work. (The pricing mechanism wasn't allowed to work in the 70's and early 80's, and thus long lines resulted during periods of supply stress. What a mess).
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby GHung » Thu 31 Aug 2017, 18:45:47

I'm not too concerned about price because we don't drive much. I filled up late last week before Harvey made landfall because the last time the Colonial was down we (our area) went almost a week without gas,, at the end of a long supply chain. Anyway, the NC Governor declared an emergency.

North Carolina declares state of emergency in anticipation of gas shortages

Anticipating gasoline shortages caused by Hurricane Harvey, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency that which waives the cap on maximum hours of service restrictions for fuel vehicles traveling in and through North Carolina.

“Hurricane Harvey’s damage to refineries in Texas and Louisiana could ripple throughout the southeast, causing gasoline shortages and rising prices,” Gov. Cooper said in a statement. “I’m taking action to make it easier to get gasoline into our state so North Carolinians who need gas can get it.”

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/31/us/harvey ... index.html
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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Thu 31 Aug 2017, 18:56:08

GHung wrote: Anyway, the NC Governor declared an emergency.

Which politically is very smart. One extremely obvious pattern about politics over the years is you do NOT want to be perceived as uncaring or ineffective when people's transportation is significantly impacted.

Many incumbent mayors have lost elections through inept handling of bad snow events over the years. Chicago in the 60's and my small city in the 90's are examples. (Google "mayors losing elections due to snow storms" to get some good hits on that).

So your governor is just playing it smart. Even if he's ineffective, he can at least objectively show he was "on the case" when push comes to shove the next election.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby vox_mundi » Thu 31 Aug 2017, 19:38:01

In driving around the DFW area running errands today, only two gas stations had any fuel, and lines were very long, with angry drivers. Prices up about $0.50.

Every auto parts store, walmart, etc is out of gas cans.

Traffic seemed heavier than usual, maybe more people desperately using up their remaining fuel to drive around looking for an open gas station.

h/t https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index. ... #msg127521

Gas Crisis Panic Grips Dallas: What Suppliers Say to Expect Next

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A "run on the tank" looks a lot like the "run on the bank" when customers start to worry.
Some gas station owners are predicting they’ll run dry by the end of the Labor Day weekend — QuikTrip told the Star-Telegram it plans to stop selling gas at half its stores over the next couple days, and all three Fuel Cities are anticipating empty pumps come Monday.

Lines stretched around the block at North Texas gas stations Thursday morning as drivers made desperate efforts to fill their tanks following a decision to shut down a major pipeline Wednesday evening. The shutdown compounds issues for Dallas' gas suppliers, which were already feeling the pressure from several refineries being offline in the Houston area due to storm damage.

At the Exxon/7-Eleven station at the corner of Oak Lawn and Maple avenues, the line of cars stretched for a block down Maple at mid-morning as drivers queued up for a chance to fill their tanks. Store manager Maebel Teklio said the lines started forming at 6 a.m. and had been constant all morning.

By mid-morning, the station sold more than 15,000 gallons more than its typical amount, and Teklio wasn't sure how long the supply would hold out. The station normally gets four deliveries a day — two loads of regular, one of premium and one of diesel. The station received its usual supply Wednesday, but no tankers had shown up yet Thursday, and she had no word from her supplier on when the next delivery might arrive.

"I heard the lines were really long, and I don't have enough gas to get back home," said Murrah, who works down the block. "I thought the lines would be shorter in the middle of the morning."

They weren't. Early morning commuters down Highway U.S. 75 passed gas stations with lines stretching onto the freeway's access road. Others passed stations flagged with signs saying they had no more gas.
Murrah, who works near the station but has a 29-mile commute, said he had to wait in line about 15 minutes to get to a pump and pay what he thought would be $2.49 a gallon. As he filled his truck, he glanced up at the station's sign — which then read $2.59.

... "It's gone up a dime since I've been here"

Several area QuikTrip stations, including the one at Alpha and Preston roads in North Dallas, were out of gas Thursday morning. QuikTrip spokesman Mike Thornbrugh said the outages were part of the company's plan to make sure North Texans can gas up throughout Harvey's aftermath.

"You are not going to have enough supply to meet your normal needs," he says, acknowledging that the news of a restricted supply is spiking demand. "So what QuikTrip is doing — we've been through this before with other hurricanes — we're taking half of our [135] Dallas-area stores and designating certain stores to be kept full of product. The reason we do that is you have no logistical way when you have a run on product that is short to keep every single outlet full of gas."

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Emergency Manager and San Angelo PD: No Gas Shortage, There is NO need to Panic

Gasoline supply pipelines between Houston refineries and a Dallas distribution center were temporarily shut down to avoid possible contamination caused by damage from Hurricane Harvey’s flooding. Those supply lines have since returned to full operations.

“There is no need to panic,” Emergency Management Coordinator Steve Mild said. “People can conduct business as usual.”

Mild stressed his information comes directly from TDEM’s State Operations Center, which received details from the Dallas distribution center. The stir, the State Operations Center reported, seemed to have been ignited in Dallas by two minor media outlets there.

The Texas Division of Emergency Management is an agency of the Texas Department of Public Safety.”

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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby Plantagenet » Thu 31 Aug 2017, 19:49:00

Gasbuddy.com is reporting plenty of gas is available in the Houston suburbs, and its really cheap too! Still under $2/gallon as of 2 hours ago.

gasbuddy.com/GasPrices/Texas/Houston

Its not surprising that the fuel trucks have had a hard time getting into downtown Houston, but any gas shortage seems to be a very localized issue and not a regional one. You just have get out of downtown Houston and there is plenty of cheap gas, at least according to gas buddy.com.

What you guys down in Houston say about it? Agent? R-man?
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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Thu 31 Aug 2017, 20:24:50

Plantagenet wrote:Gasbuddy.com is reporting plenty of gas is available in the Houston suburbs, and its really cheap too! Still under $2/gallon as of 2 hours ago.

That's interesting. I wonder if the prices in or near Houston are being kept artifically low to avoid running afoul of the anti-gouging laws. (Because with it going up meaningfully in much of the rest of the country, it wouldn't surprise me to see it going up in Houston due to normal market forces.)

In other words, would charging "normal" prices in a highly volatile market (like gasoline) be called "gouging" (and subject to MASSIVE fines) by certain government idiots?

If so, and gas stations decline to order more at, say, $2.40, to sell at under $2.00, those same government idiots shouldn't be surprised.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby Cog » Fri 01 Sep 2017, 06:57:12

Anti-gouging laws are perhaps one the worst thing ever passed into law by politicians. Causes shortages every time. The market knows what the price needs to be. Didn't prepare for an event? Sucks to be you. Go be poor somewhere else.

I'm told all the time on this very forum that the price of gasoline is too low and we should punish the consumer with high taxes on gas to reduce consumption. Well here is the chance to reduce consumption by letting the market set the price. Think Lowe's and Home Depot aren't going to increase the price of drywall and plywood shortly?
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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby Newfie » Fri 01 Sep 2017, 07:41:30

Reading TASTE OF WAR the author made a similar point about food management in WWII. She also noted that the governments need to keep the supply lines open and that hoarding can be devestating. As in the Bengal gammon. Same kind of human nature at work here.
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Re: Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown

Unread postby shortonoil » Fri 01 Sep 2017, 09:17:06

Mild stressed his information comes directly from TDEM’s State Operations Center, which received details from the Dallas distribution center. The stir, the State Operations Center reported, seemed to have been ignited in Dallas by two minor media outlets there.


This looks more like crisis management than the real situation:

Harvey-inflicted gasoline shortage spreading in North Texas with dry pumps and lines common

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/weather ... orth-texas

Horders will be shot!
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