A gasoline pipeline break in Alabama has metro Atlantans facing something they haven’t seen in a while: spiking gas prices.
Experts still expect the impact to be fairly modest and short-term, and officials of Colonial Pipeline say they hope the break will be fixed next week.
But prices at metro Atlanta pumps rose late Friday to an average of $2.31 a gallon, up 15 cents from Tuesday, according to GasBuddy, which tracks fuel prices.
Alpharetta-based Colonial has a 680-person crew working back-to-back, 12-hour shifts at the leak site in a rural part of Shelby County, south of Birmingham, said David York, a company spokesman.
“I cannot tell you when we will get the service completely up,” he said. “It is a very remote area. Everything has to be brought in. Lights, equipment, food, trailers.”
While workers repair the leak, others are building a pipe that could divert gasoline around the problem area, York said. “We are executing two plans in parallel.”
Company officials say the environmental impact will be limited to the immediate area. Leaking fuel flowed downhill about 500 yards into a pond created decades ago when the area was used for mining. The pond has no outflow, York said.
“We do not think the leaking gas has any chance of leaving the pond area,” he said. There is also a creek in the area, but workers have acted to contain any gas that spills into it, he said.
The leak was first detected Sept. 9 by a mining inspector who smelled a gasoline odor on mining property.
An estimated 336,000 gallons of gasoline have leaked from the pipe, one of two Colonial lines carrying fuel from Houston to Atlanta and then up into the northeast. The second line is being used now to carry some gasoline that would have gone through the first line, but company officials have not said how much.
"But that gas is being pumped along with diesel and jet fuel," said Gregg Laskoski, a senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy. "By definition, that has to reduce the capacity of that line for gasoline."
Gov. Nathan Deal earlier this week declared a state of emergency, but for the "limited purpose" of suspending caps on the hours that fuel truck drivers can work. The move is intended to "ensure the uninterrupted supply" of gas while the pipeline is fixed, according to the order.
AAA said the leak "has caused tighter supply for some southeast and Mid-Atlantic States."
"The Southeast has a fairly healthy supply of crude and gasoline inventories, but the market relies on just-in-time inventory and could be disrupted by an extended partial closure of the pipeline," the organization said.
While the leak has so far not caused dry pumps around metro Atlanta, the prospect of tighter supply makes prices jump.
A second company, Plantation, also runs pipelines from Gulf refineries through Atlanta to the east coast. However, metro Atlanta gets most of its fuel from Colonial, Laskoski said.
While prices moved up appreciably in Atlanta, at first they didn’t budge anywhere else in the country. By Friday, there were increases in a number of states, especially Tennessee, he said.
The range of prices in metro Atlanta was wide.
GasBuddy listed a Texaco in Stockbridge and an Exxon in the city of Atlanta as having the most expensive gas in the area: $2.79 a gallon. A number who had been below $2 a gallon earlier Friday, were above it by evening. But some were still overing below that line, including a RaceTrac in Milton reported at $1.89 in late afternoon.
Company officials declined to speculate as to the impact of the leak on prices.
"The market impact of this is beyond our reach," said Steve Baker, another spokesman for Colonial.
About the Author
