Around 3:30 p.m. Friday, when conditions were deemed safe, Colonial Pipeline initiated excavation work to unearth and fix the damaged section of Line 1 and operations continued intermittently throughout the night as safe work conditions permitted.
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The governor of North Carolina declared the state of emergency to “help ensure that there will be adequate supplies of fuel across the state and prevent excessive fuel pricing”.
According to press releases from Colonial Pipeline Company, someone noticed the smell of gasoline on Friday, Sept. 9 in rural Shelby County, Alabama, near one of Colonial Pipeline’s pipelines in the area.
The operating company Colonial shut down the major line which carries gasoline from refineries in Houston to the east coast, terminating in NY.
The pipeline provides gasoline for an estimated 50 million people on the East Coast, and gas stations are already starting to see a fuel shortage.
According to GasBuddy.com, the average price of regular grade gas in SC rose by four cents between September 9, when the pipeline was shut down, and Friday, when some Upstate drivers felt a jolt at the pump.
The company said it is shipping as much gasoline as possible on its distillate mainline, Line 2, in order to mitigate the impact of the pipeline that has been shut down.
It is “definitely worth watching and monitoring and will likely get worse with fuel prices rising as a result”, DeHaan said.
Mansfield Oil, a fuel distributor, has warned its customers to take fuel savings measures and to place their orders early.
Other states that could be effected include Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.
Colonial Pipeline has said most of the leaked gasoline is contained in a retention pond near the city of Helena and there’s no public safety concern.
According to AAA, the national average price for a gallon of gasoline as of Friday was $2.18.
“Our first priority is maintaining public safety”.
The line has been partially closed since the leak was reported, which has choked off fuel supplies to parts of the Southeast and led to higher gasoline prices. It’s unclear when the spill began.
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Colonial Pipeline said that in their statement that “Under normal circumstances, the Colonial Pipeline system transports approximately 2.6 million barrels of refined products each day with Line 1 accounting for half of this volume”.
