The federal government gave a plug to GasBuddy.com, a retail gasoline price comparison site, which recently launched a tracking tool to determine fuel availability at thousands of retail stations in the Southeast.
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Colonial Pipeline projected the restart of line one on Wednesday and that once the line is restarted, it may take a few days for supply to return to normal in the Southeastern states hit hardest by the partial closure of the pipeline, including Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.
But the repairs and restart process on the pipeline were nearly complete on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, and one GasBuddy petroleum analyst says that means fuel supply will return to normal within the next week or so. South Carolina’s regular gas rose almost 4 cents from Monday to Tuesday, and almost 18 cents from a week ago.
Colonial Pipeline spokesman Steve Baker tells The Associated Press that testing is now being done on the line.
The 500-foot bypass was needed to move fuel around the leak of the company’s main gasoline pipeline in Shelby County, Ala.
“It changes overnight sometimes that much”, he said.
American Automobile Association representatives said the pipeline should be repaired and flowing normally by the end of the week, returning gas prices to normal.
Fuel supplies in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee were all impacted by the spill with many consumers seeing rising prices at the pump.
“I tried getting gas yesterday and a lot of the stations had no gas at all, except diesel”, Wargo said Monday.
Authorities said a leak in the pipeline was discovered September 9 near Helena, Alabama, when state workers noticed a strong gasoline odor and sheen on a man-made retention pond.
Gov. Nathan Deal has declared a state of emergency, and passed an executive order allowing truck drivers hauling gas to travel for longer periods of time. Many of those prices represent an increase of 20-25 cents since the pipeline leak. The agency, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, is investigating the leak in a section of the pipeline constructed in 1963, it said. More than 800 personnel were on site in the restart efforts in the past day.
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Deal issued the state of emergency September 13, extending the hours a truck driver could drive for a period of time, so that more fuel could be transported into the state.
