More than 1,000 gas stations in the southeastern US on Tuesday reported running out of fuel, primarily because of what analysts say is unwarranted panic buying among drivers, as the shutdown of a major pipeline by a gang of hackers entered its fifth day.
Government officials acted swiftly to waive safety and environmental rules to speed the delivery of fuel by truck, ship or rail to motorists and airports, even as they sought to assure the public that there was no cause for alarm.
The Colonial Pipeline, the biggest fuel pipeline in the US, delivering about 45 percent of what is consumed on the east coast, was on Friday last week hit with a cyberattack by hackers who lock up computer systems and demand a ransom to release them.
Photo: AFP
The attack raised concerns, once again, about the vulnerability of the nation’s critical infrastructure.
A large part of the pipeline resumed operations manually late on Monday, and Colonial anticipates restarting most of its operations by the end of the week, US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said.
Motorists might still feel a crunch, because it takes a few days to ramp up operations, but she said that there is no reason to hoard gasoline.
“We know that we have gasoline; we just have to get it to the right places,” she said.
S&P’s Oil Price Information Service put the number of gas stations encountering shortages at more than 1,000.
“A lot of that is because they’re selling three or four times as much gasoline that they normally sell in a given day, because people do panic,” S&P analyst Tom Kloza said. “It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
The pipeline runs from the Texas Gulf coast to the New York metropolitan area.
The states most dependent on the pipeline include Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas, Kloza said.
Meanwhile, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer on Tuesday threatened to go after Enbridge’s profits from a Great Lakes oil pipeline if the company defies her order to shut it down.
The governor issued the warning in a letter to the Canadian energy transport company on the eve of a state-imposed deadline to halt operation of Line 5, which moves oil through northern Wisconsin and Michigan to refineries in Ontario.
Enbridge repeated its intention to defy Whitmer’s demand.
A nearly 6.4km-long section of Line 5 divides into two pipes that cross the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac, which connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.
Whitmer, backed by environmentalists and native tribes, says that the segment is vulnerable to a catastrophic spill in the cold, swirling channel.
She revoked an easement in November last year that Michigan had granted in 1953 for the pipes to occupy the lake bottom and ordered them closed by yesterday.
Enbridge insists the segment is in good condition and says that its loss would cause economic damage in both countries, a position shared by the Canadian government, which on Tuesday filed a legal brief in support of the company.
In her letter to Enbridge’s executive vice president for liquids pipelines, Whitmer said that continued operation of the line after yesterday “constitutes an intentional trespass” and that the company would do so “at its own risk.”
“If the state prevails in the underlying litigation, Enbridge would face the prospect of having to disgorge to the state all profits it derives from its wrongful use of the easement lands following that date,” Whitmer said.
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