Party at the Pumps: After Explosion, Gasoline Flows Again to the East Coast
America’s largest gasoline pipeline returned to operational status today after an explosion in Alabama six days ago killed one worker and injured five others.
Following repair delays caused by an interior fire, Colonial Pipeline Company announced that its Line 1 pipeline was restarted early Sunday morning. However, it will take several days for the fuel delivery supply chain to return to normal. The same goes for pump prices.
Southerners between Texas and South Carolina can expect to see resupply in a day, while North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland will have to wait an extra 24 hours. Meanwhile, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey will see fuel returning sometime midweek.
Pump prices are expected to quickly return to normal, and the increases proved less severe than when the same pipeline sprung a leak back in September.
WSB-TV reports Atlanta as the hardest hit, with some prices 14 cents above the slightly elevated Georgia average over the weekend. South Carolina saw fuel up an extra two cents from last week, and it was roughly a penny more in Tennessee. However, according to GasBuddy, the September’s leak saw an immediate elevation of 12.3 cents at the end of the line in New Jersey.
In contrast to the leak, workers were present during the explosion and Colonial responded immediately. Last month, Line 1 saw roughly 250,000 gallons leak before anyone become aware of the issue.
The September leak also came at a time when supplies were already limited. Refineries were in the midst of switching to winter fuel blends and entering maintenance season, Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at Oil Price Information Service, told CNBC.
Colonial’s Line 1 transports more than 100 million gallons of fuel daily between Houston and New York City and serves more than 50 million people.
The National Transportation Safety Board is currently investigating the explosion, while the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is still investigating the cause of the September leak.
Consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulations. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, he has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed about the automotive sector by national broadcasts, participated in a few amateur rallying events, and driven more rental cars than anyone ever should. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and learned to drive by twelve. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer and motorcycles.
More by Matt Posky
Comments
Join the conversation
Isn't the Department of Homeland Security supposed to be involved in this sort of thing? Such an obvious weak point--our fuel infrastructure--can't be going unnoticed by the terrorists, whom we were told are around every corner.
I'm in N. metro Atlanta. My wife went to the local QuikTrip to fill up yesterday, they did have 87 octane, but were out of the other two grades. If there's any sort of supply disruption it's usually QuikTrip that has problems, I get the impression they run their inventories pretty lean.