Colonial Pipeline restarts operations
Deliveries will be back to normal in a few days, firm says
The nation’s largest fuel pipeline restarted operations Wednesday, days after it was forced to shut down by a gang of hackers.
The disruption of Colonial Pipeline caused long lines at gas stations in the Southeast due to distribution problems and panic-buying.
Colonial initiated the restart late Wednesday, saying in a statement that “all lines, including those lateral lines that have been running manually, will return to normal operations.”
But it will take several days for deliveries to return to normal, the company said.
In the meantime, drivers have been finding gas stations with little or no gas in some Southeast states.
The Colonial Pipeline, which delivers about 45 percent of the fuel consumed on the East Coast, was hit on Friday with a cyberattack by hackers who lock up computer systems and demand a ransom to release them. The hackers didn’t take control of the pipeline operations, but Colonial shut the pipeline down to contain the damage.
“What you’re feeling is not a lack of supply or a supply issue. What we have is a transportation issue,” said Jeanette Mcgee, spokeswoman for the AAA auto club. “There is ample supply to fuel the United States for the summer, but what we’re having is an issue with getting it to those gas stations” because the pipeline is down.
The pipeline runs from the Gulf Coast to the New York metropolitan region, but states in the Southeast are more reliant on it. Other parts of the country have more sources to tap. For example, a substantial amount of fuel is delivered to states in the Northeast by massive tankers.
In North Carolina, 65 percent of gas stations were out of fuel, according to Gasbuddy.com, a technology firm that tracks real-time fuel prices across the country.
Georgians were also getting squeezed, with 43 percent of stations there out of gas, according to Gasbuddy.com. In Virginia, 44 percent of stations were out, and in South Carolina, 16 percent had no fuel.
The disruption is taking place at the time of year when Americans begin to become more mobile, especially as the nation emerges from the pandemic.
Multiple U.S. agencies coordinated to relax rules and enable fuel to be shipped faster using trucks, trains or ships, but those changes had little impact Wednesday.
The White House said the Department of Transportation is now allowing states served by the pipeline to use interstate highways to transport overweight loads of gasoline and other fuels. But there’s a national trucker shortage, so the industry isn’t able to put many more trucks on the road.
Nationwide there are about 121,000 convenience stores that sell about 5,300 gallons per day of gasoline, accounting for about 80 percent of retail fuel sales.