East Coast Gas Shortage

Johno02 wrote:
This is just another media scam for price gouging and hype. Prices in Nashville jumped from 1.89 up to 3.49 at one shell station, and all the Television heads are screaming about the end of the world. Gas station linez a block long. 10 miles out the road prices are 1.89. We are in a cg in Nashville with half a tank, almost enough to get home. Reservations paid up till next week. BTW, after the panic, the media is now saying that the crisis will be over next week and there will be plenty.

Local issue, local media coverage. Nationally there is mention but certainly not hype. If one station doubles their price it is because they are greedy not because there was news coverage.

We just returned from NJ yesterday. The only state we had an issue with was in South Carolina. We don't generally stop in North Carolina for gas because it is a lot more expensive than VA or SC. We stopped for the night in Florence, SC at a Walmart. The Murphy's gas station there was out of unleaded gas, only the diesel pumps worked. We proceeded to another gas station and they only had Regular. We paid $1.85/gallon at that station.

There doesn't seem to be an issue in our part of GA. I've passed many gas stations since we got back home and they all were open. Gas here is $2.09/gallon for regular. It was $1.99/gallon for regular yesterday.

-Michael

We have been in Nashville all week, wasn't worried about gas as we were at a RV park, with no need to go anywhere. Driving around, we saw stations that had raised prices by .50 up to over $1.00 at some. Then lot of stations were out and had bags over their pumps. Went to Walmart, and filled up about 12 gallons at about .10 higher than before.(2.10). Was planning on filling the MH before heading home, but just waited till about 40 miles out, filled up at last weeks prices. Just got out of Nashville television range, and nobody knew anything about any shortage. Were glad to sell me 70 gallons or so.

Most of the outages are not caused by lack of fuel, but too much greed and stupidity. And the Media is trying to do anything to generate spectacular news, it doesn't need to be true. Just like the internet, if you saw it on the news, it must be true!

I think that one of the things to notice is that there is no 'extra' capacity in the system. Any little hiccup translates into a shortage at the pump. Normal demand pretty much uses up all the fuel that is available. Not good.

Beaker wrote:
Is shortage just gas or also diesel?

There is no "shortage", just a distribution imbalance in some places. Only gas is affected by the pipeline break. Colonial ships diesel and jet fuel through a separate pipeline that they're now using to also ship gas. The few stations that are seeing outages are also seeing higher than normal demand that's outstripping the available capacity to resupply them.

Cheapest regular in town is $2.39.....$3.29 high. No reason, just how it is.

I definitely think the media is making it out to be worse than it is. The panic is what is leading to shortages. I'm going to try to conserve as much as I can to get through this "crisis" so I don't have to worry about it.

According to the Tennessee Emergency Management director, the only reason there are shortages is because people are hoarding gas by filling their tanks before they need to and filling every possible container as a hedge against price increases. He said the excessive demand would have caused spot shortages even without the pipeline break. Colonial is currently using their second pipe line to ship gas, along with its usual diesel and jet fuel payloads. I noticed that the Pilot station near Heiskell, TN on I-75 was at $1.99 last week, and is still at $1.99 today with plenty of pump traffic, so apparently the break hasn't had any effect there.

Horizon170 wrote:
Diesel here is 10 cents cheaper ($2.29 gal) than gasoline.
Dealers are using a broken gas line as an excuse to price gouge. The broken part of the line is supposed to be bypassed in a day or so. REAL shortage----NO. IMO
Marvin

Lay in bed last night and something came to mind. As a young man I worked at a fuel hauling company down on Middlebrook Pk. at the tank farm in Knoxville. There are two company's that have fuel lines from tx. Plantantion pipe line and Colonial Pipe Line. Colonial cannot care all the fuel the East coasts uses. Only the companies that use it will be out after several days. However the big boys will buy fuel from the company's that are on PPL. The lines run from Doraville Ga. to Knoxville to Spartainburg S.C. We hauled fuel from Shell to Gulf about 3 blocks from each other one time.. For instance if Racetrac is on Colonial and Quick Trip is on PPL then Racetrac will be out and Quick Trip will have fuel. However I would think Race Trac will sell Quick Trip fuel. Mom and pop may be out but the big boys won't. MO2cents