Run on pumps, lower production keep gas scarce

By just making sure, Atlantans have just made a shortage.

Worried drivers have continued to top off tanks when they don’t yet need gasoline, which drains supplies, forces many area stations to shut down and prevents pipelines from meeting demand.

“We are still in catch-up mode,” said Jim Tudor, president of the Georgia Association of Convenience Stores, which includes 2,600 stores.

Yet in some places around metro Atlanta, and in most of the state, there has been no similar run on stations and consequently, no shutdowns of stations.

“There are large areas of Georgia that have recovered,” Tudor said. “There are areas of Atlanta that have caught up, where consumers are making fewer runs.”

Prices have edged upward, ranging from $3.55 to $4.39 a gallon, according to GasBuddy.com. Yet after seeing $4-a-gallon gas in July, the sequel has apparently not been enough to dampen demand.

Just ask dozens of drivers sitting in lines snaking out of stations selling gas Monday.

A majority of gas stations off Ga. 400 were out of gas by afternoon. In Cumming, off Exit 14, most stations were tapped out. Desperate commuters waited as long as 45 minutes at the few stations that still had gas.

“This is the fourth station I’ve been to,” said Travis Hiscutt, of Cumming. On Sunday, he said his wife went to 10 different stations on Hwy. 41 between Alpharetta and Cumming and couldn’t find any working pumps.

Hiscutt, a traveling salesman, is concerned about the shortage but more so with the price hike expected to follow.

“I’ll be trying to do as much work as I can over the phone, but I can’t get by without meeting clients face-to-face,” he said.

Hiscutt said he drove back through Savannah and Anderson, S.C. on Friday and said didn’t notice any supply problems outside of the metro Atlanta area. “I filled up for $3.71 (in Anderson) and there were no lines,” he said.

Thanks to taxes pegged to sales and to post-hurricane problems, Georgia now has the highest priced gas in the Lower 48, according to GasBuddy: Monday, regular gas in metro Atlanta averaged $4.03 a gallon compared to the national average of $3.70.

Late Monday, in an effort to bolster supplies, Gov. Sonny Perdue urged federal officials to allow local gas stations to sell higher-sulfur fuel.

But even after supplies are replenished, prices may stay high if Monday’s record leap in global oil prices takes hold.

Oil prices rocketed more than $25 a barrel in frenzied trading, before drifting lower to close the trading day up $16.37 at $120.92 a barrel. The manic buying was triggered by the massive bail-out plan proposed by federal officials to deal with the financial crisis. That plan sent the dollar lower and investors to commodities like oil and gold.

Just last week, oil sold as low as $91 a barrel. Yet what provoked problems in Atlanta was fear of running out, and that fear is self-fulfilling, said Tex Pitfield, president of Saraguay Petroleum Corp., a distributor. “It is going to be a long healing process in the best of cases. This will go on at least a week, maybe longer.”

More than a week after Hurricane Ike slammed into the Gulf, seven refineries were not yet ramped up to full production, according to the most recent report from the Minerals Management Service.

Meanwhile, the Colonial and Plantation pipelines, which fuel Atlanta, were likewise pumping less than normal volumes.

Yet, there might still be enough, if so many drivers weren’t stopping to buy just a few gallons or, in some cases, filling up gas cans.

“People don’t want to be left out,” said economist James Bradfield of Hamilton College. “I don’t think it’s irrational; people don’t want to take the risk of not having gas.”

Staff writer Christian Boone contributed to this article.