Gasoline futures surged when an explosion shut down a critical US petroleum pipeline weeks after a spill disrupted the same system.
The Colonial pipeline feeds markets such as Atlanta, Washington and New York with fuel refined on the Gulf of Mexico coast. It can carry 2.5m barrels per day of gasoline, diesel and other products.
The pipeline company said late on Monday that an industrial digger operated by a work crew in Shelby county, Alabama, had hit its gasoline line. A blast killed one worker and injured five others, and an ensuing fire continued to burn as of its latest update.
The accident happened several miles from another pipeline segment where fuel spilled on September 9, bottling up supplies to the US south-east. On Tuesday, fuel merchants were scrambling to muster trucks to deliver petrol to service stations.
“It’s a huge deal,” said Mark Anderle, director of supply and trading at Dallas-based TAC Energy. “The fact is, there simply isn’t the infrastructure to replace 100m gallons per day of refined products.” One barrel contains 42 gallons.
Nymex December RBOB gasoline futures, a price benchmark, soared as much as 15.2 per cent late on Monday.
“The panic — I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Mark Vonderheide, managing partner at Geneva Energy Markets, an oil futures trading group in New York City.
Mr Vonderheide noted that buying pressure had eased as the New York trading day opened on Tuesday. By midday, gasoline futures were still 8.5 per cent higher at $1.5405 a gallon.
The work crew damaged Line 1, which the US Energy Information Administration said moves about 1.4m b/d of gasoline from the Gulf coast northwards towards New York harbour, the delivery point for Nymex gasoline futures.
After the September spill closed Colonial for nearly two weeks, some petrol stations ran dry and gasoline futures spiked. The situation was tempered by high stocks of gasoline in storage tanks on the east coast, however.
Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix, a Swiss-based consultancy, said Europe was likely to increase gasoline shipments to the US in response to this week’s shutdown.
The federal government might also temporarily lift the Jones Act, a law requiring more expensive US-flagged ships for coastwise travel, to encourage suppliers to bring vessels full of gasoline from the Gulf coast to the east coast, Barclays said.
The jump in gasoline prices relative to crude oil could also spur east coast refineries to produce more gasoline.
The fire came as environmental campaigners subject pipelines to intense scrutiny on safety grounds and because of their role in facilitating greenhouse gas emissions.
Crude oil lines such as the planned Dakota Access from North Dakota have drawn protests, while several new natural gas pipelines have been delayed in the US north-east, a shale gas production region.
Alabama is enduring an “exceptional” drought in the pipeline’s path. Governor Robert Bentley said on Twitter that the explosion sparked wildfires in the vicinity.
http://ift.tt/2ejIjK6
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar