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Widespread gasoline shortages along the US East Coast began to ease slightly on Saturday as the nation’s biggest fuel pipeline ramped up operations following last week’s cyberattack, and ships and trucks were deployed to fill up dry storage tanks.
The six-day Colonial Pipeline shutdown was the most disruptive cyberattack on record, triggering widespread panic buying by U.S. motorists that left filling stations across the US Southeast out of gas.
On Saturday morning, some 81 percent of gas stations in Washington D.C. were without fuel, an improvement from 88 percent without fuel late Friday, according to fuel tracking app GasBuddy.
Shortages also eased slightly in Florida and Maryland, while remaining about the same in North Carolina.
US gasoline demand, meanwhile, dropped 12.6 percent from the previous week, a decline that was likely due to an easing of “crazed” panic buying just after the pipeline shut, said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.
The nationwide average for a gallon of regular unleaded was US$3.04 on Saturday, from US$2.96 a week ago, according to AAA.
The Colonial Pipeline began its restart on Wednesday, and said it was approaching normal rates.
Ships deployed under emergency waivers were also moving fuel from US Gulf Coast refiners to the northeast, while 18-wheel tanker trunks were ferrying gasoline from Alabama to Virginia, helping to stem the shortages.
In Washington D.C., Dennis Li was stuck on Friday at a Sunoco gas station that was out of fuel. He had tried to find gas at four stations during the day, with no luck.
“I’m running on empty to the point where I don’t want to drive anymore,” said Li, who is from Annapolis, Maryland.
Nicholas Swann had driven from his home in Washington to Bethesda to get gasoline, where the wait was 15 minutes.
“We were originally going to drive out to the beach this weekend but we don’t know if we will, because I can’t make it there and back on one tank of gas,” Swann said.
The hacking group blamed for the attack, DarkSide, said it had hacked four other companies including a Toshiba subsidiary in Germany.-Reuters
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