| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Captain Compassion" |
| Date: |
21 Apr 2006 10:34:53 AM |
| Object: |
Pumps go dry at some gas stations |
Pumps go dry at some gas stations
Problems at refineries have disrupted some supplies. AAA warned that
problems could continue for weeks - and drive prices higher.
By Harold Brubaker, Edward Colimore and Marc Schogol
Inquirer Staff Writers
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/14391807.htm
MICHAEL S. WIRTZ / Inquirer
Tanker trucks wait in line to fill up at Pacific Atlantic Terminal in
South Philadelphia. Gasoline supplies have been disrupted in the
Philadelphia and New York markets as refiners have run into problems
working to replace a gasoline additive with ethanol. Some
Philadelphia- area gas stations have had to close temporarily when
they ran out of fuel to sell.As if rising prices weren't enough, the
tanks have run dry at some Philadelphia-area service stations in the
last few days as the refining industry stumbles through a change in
the formulation of gasoline.
Oil refiners are phasing out a petrochemical that makes gasoline burn
cleaner but which also has been found to contaminate groundwater.
Refiners are switching to corn-based ethanol.
The changeover is creating supply-chain bottlenecks because much work
must be done at fuel terminals and service stations to handle ethanol.
The maintenance-related shutdown of one area refinery, production
problems at another, and the change from winter-blend to summer-blend
gasoline are exacerbating the problems.
"There is truly a dearth of supply in the Philly and New York markets
today," Wayne Hummel, of Liberty Petroleum L.L.C., said yesterday. His
firm supplies 40 stations in the Philadelphia region.
Hummel said four Liberty stations had run out of fuel the last two
days, as tanker trucks drove from terminal to terminal, unable to find
fuel. "It's ugly. It's very ugly," he said.
AAA Mid-Atlantic warned drivers yesterday that gasoline-supply
disruptions could continue for the next few weeks and contribute to
higher pump prices.
The group said the average gasoline price in Philadelphia and its
Pennsylvania suburbs had climbed 52 cents a gallon - or 22 percent -
to $2.85 since the most recent upturn began on March 7. In South
Jersey, yesterday's average was $2.71 a gallon, an 18 percent increase
from a month ago. A key benchmark price for crude oil on the New York
Mercantile Exchange yesterday was $71.95 a barrel, up more than $10
from a month ago.
Catherine Rossi, spokeswoman for AAA, said she knew of eight stations
in the region that were out of fuel yesterday.
Areas of Virginia and Texas, also going through the ethanol
conversion, have experienced similar supply disruptions, said Jeff
Lenard, spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores.
Locally, gas retailers said scheduled deliveries had been late -
sometimes up to a day or more - causing them to turn customers away.
Lou Stiles' Sunoco service station in Mount Laurel ran out of gas at
least four times this month. Yesterday afternoon, he ran out of
regular and was waiting for a tanker.
"We're a 24-hour operation and pay two men to stay on when there's
nothing to do but wait for a load of gas," said Stiles, who has
operated the station at Route 38 and Hartford Road for 40 years.
As of 6:25 p.m., cones were blocking the gas lanes at the station.
Jai Kulkarni, owner of a Lukoil station and Kwik Farms convenience
store on Route 23 in West Conshohocken, said he was out of gas for
about four hours Wednesday. He kept the convenience store open, but he
closed the pumps - at a cost of $200 an hour in lost sales.
At that station yesterday was Vinnie Zambuto, a 31-year-old graphic
designer from Coatesville who said he had never seen a dry gas station
before encountering one last week. Recalling the gas shortages of the
1970s that his "parents keep talking about," he said he hoped the new
shortages were short-lived.
"I'm hoping it will work itself out."
The conversion to ethanol was prompted by the federal Energy Policy
Act of 2005, which left refiners vulnerable to groundwater
contamination suits and mandated greater use of renewable fuels. The
use of ethanol forced gasoline retailers to clean their tanks, remove
all water from them and install extremely fine filters on their pumps.
Ethanol is a solvent that picks up any gunk in tanks and readily
blends with water. Those properties could ruin a 9,000-gallon tank of
gasoline at a huge cost to a retailer.
It costs up to $1,500 to clean tanks, said Kevin S. Kan, president and
chief executive officer of American Auto Wash Inc. in Malvern, which
operates 18 stations in the region, including 13 BPs that have
converted to the ethanol blend.
Ethanol is logistically more complicated than the petrochemical it
replaced - MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether. Refiners could blend
MTBE into gasoline at the refinery and send the finished gasoline
through pipelines to terminals.
But ethanol must be blended into gasoline at the terminal because it
would mix with water if it were sent through pipelines, ruining the
fuel. So, fuel terminals have to go through a similar process of
cleaning tanks to store ethanol before it is blended.
They must also install blending equipment.
Independent gasoline distributors said few fuel terminals had gas
yesterday. Those that did, such as the former Exxon terminal in South
Philadelphia now owned by Pacific Energy Partners L.P., had trucks
waiting four hours for fuel because the terminal was filling trucks in
only two of the five lanes that they use normally. "We are doing our
best to activate the others," said Jennifer Shigei, manager of
investor relations for the Long Beach, Calif., company.
The three companies that operate refineries on the Delaware River -
Sunoco Inc., Valero Energy Corp., and ConocoPhillips - declined to
discuss the supply situation in much detail.
Valero spokeswoman Mary Rose Brown said the company's Paulsboro
refinery began blending ethanol yesterday, but did not respond to a
question about a disruption there this week.
Shannon Breuer, a spokeswoman for Sunoco, said the company was
"focused on being a reliable supplier" and was confident that any
problems would be short-term.
--
"There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to
whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is
impossible." -- Jack Vance
"Civilizaton is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" -- Ambrose Bierce
"Long term commitment in relationships is only necessary because it takes
so damn long to raise children. Marriage may well be some kind of trick
to keep the males around beyond sexual satiation." -- Captain Compassion
"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net
.
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| User: "Jeffrey Turner" |
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| Title: Re: Pumps go dry at some gas stations |
21 Apr 2006 11:46:38 AM |
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Captain Compassion wrote:
Pumps go dry at some gas stations
Body bags pile up in Iraq. Idiot Americans continue to buy
SUVs and Hummers.
--Jeff
--
It is only those who have neither
fired a shot nor heard the shrieks
and groans of the wounded who cry
aloud for blood, more vengeance, more
desolation. War is hell.
--William Tecumseh Sherman
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| User: "Captain Compassion" |
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| Title: Re: Pumps go dry at some gas stations |
21 Apr 2006 02:21:29 PM |
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On Fri, 21 Apr 2006 12:46:38 -0400, Jeffrey Turner
<jturner@localnet.com> wrote:
Captain Compassion wrote:
Pumps go dry at some gas stations
Body bags pile up in Iraq. Idiot Americans continue to buy
SUVs and Hummers.
Stupid governments keep changing standards.
--
"There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to
whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is
impossible." -- Jack Vance
"Civilizaton is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" -- Ambrose Bierce
"Long term commitment in relationships is only necessary because it takes
so damn long to raise children. Marriage may well be some kind of trick
to keep the males around beyond sexual satiation." -- Captain Compassion
"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net
.
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| User: "Jeffrey Turner" |
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| Title: Re: Pumps go dry at some gas stations |
21 Apr 2006 04:22:26 PM |
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Captain Compassion wrote:
On Fri, 21 Apr 2006 12:46:38 -0400, Jeffrey Turner
<jturner@localnet.com> wrote:
Captain Compassion wrote:
Pumps go dry at some gas stations
Body bags pile up in Iraq. Idiot Americans continue to buy
SUVs and Hummers.
Stupid governments keep changing standards.
What standards are those?
--Jeff
--
It is only those who have neither
fired a shot nor heard the shrieks
and groans of the wounded who cry
aloud for blood, more vengeance, more
desolation. War is hell.
--William Tecumseh Sherman
.
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| User: "Captain Compassion" |
|
| Title: Re: Pumps go dry at some gas stations |
21 Apr 2006 09:38:50 PM |
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On Fri, 21 Apr 2006 17:22:26 -0400, Jeffrey Turner
<jturner@localnet.com> wrote:
Captain Compassion wrote:
On Fri, 21 Apr 2006 12:46:38 -0400, Jeffrey Turner
<jturner@localnet.com> wrote:
Captain Compassion wrote:
Pumps go dry at some gas stations
Body bags pile up in Iraq. Idiot Americans continue to buy
SUVs and Hummers.
Stupid governments keep changing standards.
What standards are those?
Formulation standards, EPA standards.
--
"There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to
whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is
impossible." -- Jack Vance
"Civilizaton is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" -- Ambrose Bierce
"Long term commitment in relationships is only necessary because it takes
so damn long to raise children. Marriage may well be some kind of trick
to keep the males around beyond sexual satiation." -- Captain Compassion
"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net
.
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| User: "Gogarty" |
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| Title: Re: Pumps go dry at some gas stations |
21 Apr 2006 11:16:14 AM |
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Ethanol as a fuel is a really bad idea. I don't care what they are doing
in Brazil.
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| User: "Captain Compassion" |
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| Title: Re: Pumps go dry at some gas stations |
21 Apr 2006 02:20:38 PM |
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On Fri, 21 Apr 2006 12:16:14 -0400, Gogarty <Gogarty@Clongowes.edu>
wrote:
Ethanol as a fuel is a really bad idea. I don't care what they are doing
in Brazil.
In Brazil they are cutting down the rain forest and planting sugar
cane. In the US we would have to use cane, sugar beets and corn. It's
not such a good idea to trade food for fuel.
--
"There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to
whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is
impossible." -- Jack Vance
"Civilizaton is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" -- Ambrose Bierce
"Long term commitment in relationships is only necessary because it takes
so damn long to raise children. Marriage may well be some kind of trick
to keep the males around beyond sexual satiation." -- Captain Compassion
"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net
.
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