WASHINGTON—Washington, D.C., was running out of gasoline on Friday, even as the country’s largest fuel pipeline network ramped up deliveries following a cyberattack and officials assured motorists that supplies would return to normal soon.
The six-day Colonial Pipeline shutdown was the most disruptive cyberattack on record. Widespread panic buying continued two days after the pipeline network restarted, leaving filling stations across the U.S. Southeast out of gas.
With more Americans taking road trips as pandemic restrictions ease, pump prices are at their highest in years. The average national gasoline price has climbed to almost $3.04, the most expensive since October 2014, the American Automobile Association said.
As politicians discussed legislation to improve cyber defenses, more gasoline stations shut down in the capital city of the world’s largest oil-consuming nation.
On Friday gas station outages in Washington climbed to 88 percent from 79 percent the day before, tracking firm GasBuddy said. President Joe Biden assured motorists supplies should start returning to normal by this weekend.
“Most of these states/areas with outages have continued to see panicked buying, which is likely a contributing factor to the slowish recovery thus far,” said GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan. “It will take a few weeks.”
Colonial Pipeline announced late Thursday it had restarted its entire pipeline system linking refineries on the Gulf Coast to markets along the eastern seaboard.
On Friday evening, the pipeline was shipping at normal rates based on shipper nominations, a spokeswoman for Colonial said.
Some states experienced modest improvements but still had a lot of gasoline outages. Some 65 percent of gas stations in North Carolina were without fuel, while in Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia just under 50 percent were empty, GasBuddy said.
Overall, some 14,144 gas stations were experiencing outages, down from a peak of 16,200, GasBuddy said on Friday afternoon.
BY REUTERS
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