Very preliminary reports that Colonial pipeline has experienced a EDIT out Natural gas incorrect media report. Gasoline pipeline major explosion due to back hoe hitting line. This about a mile from where the petroleum pipeline failure in October.
One report said Colonial had to shut down the fuel lines as well. That might be the Natural gas line and both fuel lines one for gasoline and one for diesel and jet fuel. Without knowing exactly how the pipelines are laid out that is only speculation of a long term shutdown but I will be filling my autos tomorrow.
As usual news media gets it wrong. Natural gas line not involved. As to whether both pipelines shut down or just the gasoline one there is no reliable info.
This report says both lines shut down. However it is unknown if line 2 which carries jet fuel and diesel was damaged. CSX, NS, & Amtrak RRs are probably holding their breath. In the report note the graph for gasoline in storage especially late September when pipelie was shut down for the leak.
Midland that is good news for the diesel fuel and jet fuel. Guess this site is the best for updates and gets away from media hype or incorrect reporting.
Hope Colonial has enough spare parts after having to use many on the first leak ? The correct size valves certainly are not off the shelf items ?
Pipeline still burning so no repirs started yet. We can suspect that Colonial is bringing in supplies and equipment so once fire is out it can start repairs. Colonial still stating they will start pipeline Saturday but we must wonder since fire not out yet. Colonial may be trying to delay more political fallout and panic buying of gasoline ?
Colonial seems to have had more than their fair share of problems recently. I am curious why they have a near monopoly on fuel pipeline transport, and no redundancy to speak of. This isn’t the left coast - why so few pipelines?
The fire is about out. They only have to cut out and replace a short section of line. This is much less involved than the earlier leak, where they had to construct a bypass line and valves.
All in all just another excuse to price gouge! Unfortunately one of the members of the contractor’s operation that caused the incident lost his life…RIP!
Colonial has now pushed re start to at least Sunday afternoon. Any bets ? Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina has suspended HOS driving limits for fuel truck drivers. Wonder what happened in SC ?
If HOS regulation needs to be enforced on any catagory of truck driver - it should be dirvers of HAZMAT trucks - Gasolene and diesel are HAZMAT commodities.
Since HOS regulations are Federal, how can states not enforce them?
There actually are other refined product lines, see map link. The map does not specify pipeline diameter, so it is hard to tell if the other lines have much capacity. (Edit: The map also does not show flow direction, so some of the pipeline segments in the NE are flowing away from costal refineries.) Pipelines are built as “take or pay”, where the user has to commit to a certain amount of volume, or has to pay anyway. They are not financed on speculation. And like todays railroads, ther is not a lot of extra capacity. The east coast had some competition in the form of coastal tankers up from the Gulf coast. However, that has been supplanted by ocean tanker imports, although there has been some renewed interest in costal tankering.