Alert: Colonial Gasoline Pipeline Shutdown
Posted: Fri 16 Sep 2016, 14:49:11
Leak From Biggest U.S. Gasoline Pipe Sparks ‘Red Alert’
Gasoline prices are set to jump across the eastern U.S. after a spill from the country’s largest fuel pipeline choked off supplies.
A 250,000 gallons leak near Birmingham, Alabama Sept. 9 shut the main gasoline pipeline delivering fuel from refineries along the Gulf Coast to 50 million Americans in states from Mississippi to New Jersey. Colonial Pipeline Co. said on Thursday it pushed back the estimate for a complete startup of its Line 1 to next week from this weekend, citing adverse weather conditions overnight that slowed the cleanup and repair.
Suppliers are moving gasoline and diesel by sea and sending trucks to distant terminals to bring fuel to consumers, but it won’t come close to the 1.3 million barrels a day that the shuttered line normally carries.
"The thing is that there is a time pressure. No one is exactly sure when the pipeline will be completely fixed," Patricia Hemsworth, senior vice president at Paragon Global Markets in New York, said by message.
Colonial said that supply disruptions would be felt first in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Tom Kloza, an energy analyst with the Oil Price Information Service, said some stations in the Southeast could run short on supply and boost their prices by 20 or 30 cents a gallon.The Colonial pipeline is the metaphorical aorta for the supply the most populated regions of the country, and you've lost 10 days of blood flow
If prices rise, the effect could be felt the hardest in Tennessee, which is supplied by a spur off the leaky pipeline.
Trade groups for service stations and convenience stores in Tennessee assured consumers that the pumps won't run dry. They said fuel wholesalers were hauling gasoline in from fuel terminals and refineries that don't depend on the downed pipeline.
Near Birmingham, work crews were trying Friday to repair the pipeline. Georgia-based Colonial Pipeline said most of the spilled gasoline has been corralled in a retention pond, and it downplayed any threat to public safety. It's not clear when the leak started. It was detected Sept. 9.