Actually, that was precisely what the problem was. The pipeline is thousands of miles long, depositing fuel in various tank farms along the way. This one, for example, is around 10 miles from me.
(The pipeline pumps on the order of 100 million gallons a day. That tank farm holds–I would guess–around 20-30 million gallons total.)
Can we send them after the hackers?
If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a billion tiny robots; robots I have acquired over a very long career…
As I already said, the tank farms had enough fuel on hand to continue supplying gas stations at the usual rate for several days. From what I heard they keep a few extra days supply on hand in case the pipeline gets behind. The reason gas stations didn’t have fuel was because people were buying at a higher rate than normal.
Or to put in another way, even if the pipeline wasn’t shut down, if everyone went out and bought gas at the same time the same thing would have happened.
If the pipeline had remained shut down for more than a couple of days, then getting fuel to the tank farms would have become a problem, but it didn’t.
We have actually seen this in action before - pipeline intact and pumping away, but a local situation of stations running out of gas because everyone hears there’s a hurricane coming or something and runs out to fill up.
It just happened over a much larger geographic area this time.
If they had 10x the storage, there would still be a shortage. There isn’t enough trucking capacity to keep up with the panicky demand. More specifically, there aren’t enough truck drivers.
The title of this thread is irresponsible.
I actually just heard NPR report that fuel is running out in some places that aren’t even served by the pipeline.
I was at 1/4 tank and filled up today at costco. Also the pipeline runs very near my house , less than a 1/2 mile. It is very well marked.
I doubt it was the U.S. government.
I’d be OK if it was the US government.
A corner near me has two stations. One was out when I walked by Thursday. Both out yesterday morning. Both last charging ~$3/gal, likely because they’re prevented from jacking up prices to an appropriate level.
It’s highly unlikely there aren’t enough truck drivers available. they may have to pull them from further away but independent drivers are use to literally driving all over the country. It’s just a matter of $$$$ getting them to show up.
As far as the tank farms are concerned we have a national reserve available. If it’s a matter of a week of panic buying then the reserves were a natural fix to the problem.
I doubt the USG will take credit for it. What reason do you have to doubt that this was done by the US cyber intelligence or someone acting on their behalf?
Getting them to show up WITHOUT creating shortages in their home territories, though, is the real trick. It serves no useful purpose to pull a bunch of rigs out of Florida and send them to North Carolina if that is just transferring the out-of-fuel gas station problem to the Sunshine State, for example. This article says that areas not served by the Colonial Pipeline were having shortages anyway because of panic-buying, with retailers going through in a matter of hours the same quantity that would normally last several days. That means one would have to be really careful about conditions elsewhere too.
(As an aside, does the US have a big fleet of independent drivers who own [or lease] their own fuel delivery tankers? I can’t say I have ever seen many at all, and having the drivers doesn’t help if you don’t have the tankers.)
Pipeline runs about 1/4 mile from my house here in NC. Big fine if you mess with it .
Observation from travelling this weekend: We drove to a small down in the middle of the state. Normally their gasoline is about 25 cents a gallon less than here (DC suburb). We saw a number of stations that were out of gas entirely, and several whose prices rose in the few hours between when we drove past them one way and returned the other. Their prices were comparable to or perhaps higher than we’d paid around home a week before. We didn’t have real trouble finding fuel; one station was out but the next one had plenty.
I just looked at Gas Buddy and there are some places here whose prices are about what we paid over the weekend in the other part of the state, but most are 20-40 cents more per gallon. A LOT of them show as out of diesel; fewer show as out of gasoline - though that could well be because more diesel owners are bothering to report the status.
Yes but you’ll note I was talking about independent drivers. They have no base of operation per se. They go where the dollar takes them. If the going rate is X and a need arises then 1.25 X drives the market.
Is there a fleet of independent drivers who have no base of operations per se but just go around the country where the dollar takes them hauling their fuel tanker behind them, who do not already have contracts for where they’re delivering the next week or two?
There are plenty of truckers who own/lease a cab and will be happy to pull whatever trailer you’ve got, but where are the trailers here? Pretty much every fuel tanker I see is operated by or on behalf of a specific local fuel wholesaler or trucking company and is used to deliver to that company’s usual customers on a more-or-less fixed route. Drivers, even if owner-operators, are typically contracted to a specific fuel supplier and/or using that supplier’s tankers. If they take that tanker to a different state, they are indeed pulling capacity from one region to another.
“Trucking capacity” is not just drivers and trucks; you need the tankers that actually haul the fuel. Have you verified that surplus tankers are available?
Well, there’s this guy:
No,. Have you? Do you think there is a 1 to 1 ratio of tankers to delivery cycles and therefore any upward change in deliveries exceeds capacity?