With the pipeline from Alabama pumping again, motorists are looking at gas prices of roughly 11 cents a gallon higher than before the Sept. 9 accident that shut it down.
That line, which carries gasoline from the refineries along the Gulf Coast up to Atlanta and into the northeast United States, started pumping again on Sunday, according to officials of Alpharetta-based Colonial Pipeline, which owns and operates the line.
The shutdown’s impact will linger, said Gregg Laskoski, senior petroleum analyst for Gas Buddy. “It will likely take at least several days for supply levels to normalize.”
But the prognosis is positive, he said. “Wholesale gasoline prices across the country today are starting the week significantly lower than where we began last week and that’s due largely to supply outpacing current demand.”
Global market pressures have also been keeping the price of crude oil low, he said.
The Colonial gasoline pipeline, a critical – though not sole – source of gas to auto-centric Atlanta, went down a week ago after an explosion and fire that killed a worker and injured five others. A second Colonial line, which carried diesel and jet fuel, also shut down, but only briefly.
It was the second shutdown of that critical pipeline in two months, the first a still-unexplained leak that poured an estimated 309,540 gallons – 7,370 barrels – of gasoline into the Alabama wilderness. That first incident sent gas prices spiking roughly 30 cents a gallon and forced shutdowns of pumps at scores of area stations.
The second, tragic, incident happened as workers for a Colonial contractor were clearing the area near the spill for continued repairs and improvements.
The impact on gas prices was real, but more modest. And reports of shutdown stations were relatively few.
But it does leave gas prices somewhat higher than they would have been otherwise: A year ago, metro Atlanta gas prices averaged $2.18 a gallon, according to Gas Buddy.
Prices typically slip after mid-summer and gradually dip to a yearly low in late winter. And a year ago, Atlanta prices were continuing a decline that had begun in mid-2015. Prices finally bottomed out at the beginning of February, 2016, averaging $1.63 a gallon before starting to climb again, according to Gas Buddy’s price-tracking web site.
Gas prices have not averaged below $2 a gallon since March.
The pipeline accident also nudged metro Atlanta prices above the national average, the reverse of a year ago. The current national average is $2.20 a gallon, according to Gas Buddy.
Now: $2.30
One week ago: $2.19
One year ago $2.18
Source: Gas Buddy
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