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.
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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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.
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.
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."