A leak has caused the closure of a crucial pipeline that carries gasoline to the eastern United States, a disruption that threatens to drive up prices and leave service stations without fuel to sell. It has since restarted Line 2, its distillate line, and expects to restart Line 1, its gasoline line, completely by this weekend.
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The major pipeline, one pipe of which has been severed, provides gasoline for an estimated 50 million people on the East Coast each day, according to company estimates.
The company on Friday shut its main gasoline and distillate lines, which are critical to East Coast product supply, after the leak in Shelby County, Alabama, which appears to be the largest spill for this line in 20 years.
Colonial Pipeline is pushing back the estimate for a complete startup of its Line 1 to next week from this weekend, citing adverse weather conditions overnight that slowed the cleanup and fix.
Officials say that while the pipeline has been shut off since the spill’s discovery, there may still be oil in the pipe leaking out into the surrounding environment, and they cannot begin excavating the leaking section yet due to safety measures.
US gasoline futures jumped 5 percent on the news.
Gulf coast gasoline prices were weakening while New York Harbor strengthened, traders said.
Docks on the Gulf Coast are “already getting busy” after the outage, a source at a USA refiner said.
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This is the largest spill on the Colonial line since 1996, when about 22,800 barrels of fuel oil leaked in SC, according to National Transportation Safety Board data.
