No gas shortages for Conn. after pipeline cyberattack
The shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline by computer hackers couldn’t have come at a worse time for Connecticut motorists, according to energy and travel experts.
Officials with Colonial Pipeline, which carries petroleum from the Gulf Coast to Linden, New Jersey, with several unloading points along the way, have said they expect normal service to be restored by the end of the week.
But with the full length of the pipeline shut down for close to a week, experts say it could be weeks before supplies of gasoline and other petroleum products get back to normal.
The Colonial Pipeline, which is more than 5,500 miles long, is the nation’s largest, carrying more than 100 million gallons of fuel per day. The FBI on Monday said the group Darkside, which reportedly develops ransomware and sells it to other outfits, is responsible for the attack.
The Memorial Day long weekend typically signals the start of the summer travel season; this year, about 34 million people are expected to hit the road over the long holiday weekend, according to Fran Mayko, a spokeswoman for AAA Northeast. Overall, about 37 million people are expected to drive or fly 50 miles or more over the weekend.
This year’s overall travel projections are down 13 percent from Memorial Day Weekend in 2019. The number of people driving or flying in 2020 over the long holiday weekend was down 60 percent from the year before, Mayko said.
“My sense is this year that people are going to drive no matter how high the price of gasoline gets
because they have been cooped up for so long,” she said.
AAA Northeast reported Monday that Connecticut’s average gas price of $3.01 is the most expensive it has been since early May 2019 — the last time the average broke the $3 mark. The average gas price rose $0.06 since last week and is $1.09 higher than last year.
The Oil Price Information Service, a company providing pricing and news information for petroleum product pricing, news and analysis, is already reporting gasoline shortages from Alabama and Florida as far north as Norfolk, Va., and Baltimore, Md.
“Despite warnings to stay calm, stations in southeastern states impacted by the Colonial Pipeline shutdown are now seeing daily sales volumes two or three times the normal pace,
leading to outages at many points and full-fledged scrambles to get transports loaded at terminals that do have fuel,” an OPIS report said on Monday.
Tom Kloza, one of the founders of OPIS, tweeted Tuesday that he expects the national average gas price “will ascend past $3 gal in next 48 hours.” The last time that happened was on Halloween 2014, according to Kloza.
“But we won’t get to those $3.60+ numbers that characterized the 2014 summer,” he tweeted. “Markets are calming down; consumers need to do likewise.”
Kevin Curry, a Meriden resident who owns a fuel wholesale business as well Teddy’s Stores, which has five New Haven County convenience stores with fuel pumps, said he is surprised the Connecticut average price wasn’t driven even higher — fueled by speculation of how high the price will ultimately go.
“We’re very fortunate in Connecticut
because New Haven has what is known as a deep water supply, which means petroleum products arrive at the harbor on deep water tankers,” Curry said. “So there’s not a problem there until they divert the tankers, and I don’t know who is responsible for making a decision at that level. But right now, everybody is afraid of the tankers being diverted to another point on the East Coast.”
Like most businesses these days, gas station refueling is done on a just-in-time basis, he said. That means gas stations keep their inventories low, which can produce shortages if there is a problem with a fuel supplier.
Even once full service is restored along the Colonial Pipeline, Curry said it may take a while for the volume of petroleum products coming through the line reaches levels seen prior to the act of cyberterrorism.