By ZACH HARMUTH
The Colonial Pipeline, a gasoline company whose ruptured pipeline on Friday has created gas shortages and a state of emergency in Middle Tennessee, announced in an update Tuesday morning on its website that a bypass segment to the broken part of its pipeline in Alabama is nearly online.
Once online, oil supply should re-normalize within a few days.
“Construction, fabrication and positioning of the bypass segment around the leak site is complete,” read the release. “Colonial is in the process of executing a hydrostatic test of the segment, which is approximately 500 feet in length, to ensure its structural integrity.”
If the tests prove successful, Colonial Pipeline will begin physically bypassing the main line with the segment and prepare to restart the line.
Colonial Pipeline projects a Line 1 restart for Wednesday.
Meanwhile, long lines at gas pumps and fuel shortages continue to be common sights along Middle Tennessee roads and highways.
“We’ve been getting shipments here since Saturday on the alternative line,” said Mike Williams, executive director of the Tennessee Petroleum Council. “Although it has been slower we’ve been getting gas here. Supply is going to increase – it might take a day or two, but will start increasing almost immediately.”
Colonial switched a second, parallel pipeline from diesel to gasoline in response to the break.
Williams said the shortages over the last few days resulted more from public demand than supply issues.
“Have you ever been here when there is snow predicted?” he said. “Everyone runs to grocery store and buys bread and milk. And even if it doesn’t snow, there is still no bread and milk left. This is the same situation.
“There has been hoarding, where people fill up gas cans just in case, or they top off every time they use an eighth of a tank, or they are afraid prices are going to go up a dime so they rush out. There would have been some spot outages and we were prepared for spot outages, but the panic buying and the hoarding is what caused the problem.
“It happened before and I assume it will happen again, and it is not unique to here.”
Additionally, there have been reports of gas stations running out of premium gasoline, with people filling up in the belief that it gives them better gas mileage.
According to Williams, getting better gas mileage from using premium isn’t necessarily correct. He also said the supply of premium is less than that of regular currently.
“You should use the gasoline that your car is designed to use, because if your car is designed to run on regular and you put premium in it, certainly that won’t be an advantage,” he said.
