As news began to emerge last weekend that the Colonial Pipeline Line 1 had experience a failure or small leak, veterans of pipeline infrastructure began to pay closer attention. The pipeline is America's biggest gasoline products conduit that supplies the world's single largest petroleum products market: the U.S. Northeast as well as plenty of communities along the way from Houston, Texas to Linden, New Jersey. Fully, 40% of all New York Harbour gasoline comes via the Colonial, so what happens to that line really matters to drivers.
At the time of writing, the pipeline operator had confirmed that work was underway to rebuild the ruptured segment of the line near Helena, Alabama where it is thought that 250,000 gallons or 6,000 barrels had seeped into and affected a two acre area, causing a "fuel emergency".
Given the line's significance to the eastern part of the North American continent, its mention by business media, energy traders and affect on drivers and prices can be underestimated. A disruption to the Colonial has been likened quite aptly to the human aorta: a blockage or shutdown is not something to take lightly.
Already, the affected States of Tennessee, Alabama, North and South Carolina, and Georgia have taken the brunt, with truckers now being permitted to haul longer hours to fill the gap, stations running out and of course higher gas prices. Indeed, since the spill, the market has added 12.3 cents a gallon to the price at the pipeline's terminus at Linden NJ. The longer the pipeline remains idle, that price could double, although the operator believes, perhaps optimistically the line could be flowing again by midweek. If not, look to that price rising once again by a similar amount.
