In Colonial Pipeline Mess, Tank Trucks come to the Rescue

Wednesday night Colonial Pipeline Company, which uses the country’s largest pipeline system for refined oil, has announced that the 5,500-mile system is finally up and running, and the service is expected to return to normal by the end of the week. It had been four days since a pipe had come down historical — and frightening–ransomware attack.

And yet, as of Thursday morning, cars continued to serve around gas stations up and down the East Coast, waiting their turn to fill the tank. It turns out that if you tell people that something threatens their oil supply, they will freak out and buy a lot. The National Association of Shopping Stores reported on Wednesday that the stations do their usual business two or four times, as some stores wash gasoline for several days — about 16,000 gallons at the station — in a matter of hours. It’s the usual buying behavior in the industry around hurricanes, says the association’s Jeff Lenard, vice president of strategic industry initiatives.

The panic buying has also spread to sites that don’t get gas from the Colonial Pipeline: on Wednesday, the association denounced the increase in sales to the south, to Naples (Florida), the region that pulls gasoline out of cargo tanks.

Industry executives say the closure of the pipeline caused some supply problems. But a lot of gas shortages are happening in retail outlets because oil is in the wrong place. With the gas pipeline impossible in recent days, the oil and gas industry has shifted to other modes of transport: rail, ships and, most importantly, tanker trucks. Lots of oil trucks.

Typically, tanker trucks are the last element of a long journey from the oil refinery to the fuel tank. Ships, railways and pipelines do most of the work, delivering gas to distribution terminals across the country. The trucks end the journey, from the distribution terminal to the country’s 150,000 gas stations. As pipelines slow down and demand increases everywhere, truckers have to make faster turns and sometimes travel longer — 80 to 180 miles more each time — according to Ryan Streblow, interim president of National Tank Truck Carriers. , industry group.

However, there are a lot of trucks to pick up the pace, and so many drivers alone. Thousands of oil drivers are on the road this week, according to national tanker truck carriers, carrying between 8,000 and 11,500 gallons of gas. It will probably take a few days for the pump to return to normal.

In an effort to move gases faster, the federal government has refused to allow specific areas to carry more gas than tanker trucks allow than safety guidelines normally allow. He also refused certain rules of service hours, as drivers were allowed to continue on the road for longer than usual.

Michael Belzer, an economist at Wayne State University, examines trucks to compare the state of the oil and gas industry supply chain issues many other sectors have struggled Covid-19 from the pandemic toilet paper ra milk ra wood. “Like everyone else in the Covid economy, you have dislocations in the supply chain,” he says, products that are not where they are needed. “It takes time to catch up with the small increase in demand.”

Oil industry executives say it would be easier to get diesel to the right places if there were more tanker truck drivers. Oil transport industry group in April he began to warn of the shortage of drivers, especially given the projected rise in demand for hard-traveled gas during the summer months. The industry has 10 percent fewer drivers than in 2019, Streblow said Wednesday. “You increase that challenge when you have a break in the supply chain, and that’s what we have now on the East Coast. So it’s even more stressful.”