Retail U.S. gasoline
prices surge as refineries warn of shortages after
Harvey
Send a link to a friend
[September 02, 2017]
By Julia Simon
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Retail U.S. gasoline
prices rose 2.8 percent from Friday to Saturday as refineries warned
customers about fuel-supply shortages caused by Hurricane Harvey.
They were at $2.59 a gallon, according to motorists advocacy group AAA.
It represents a 16.7 percent rise in the average price from a year ago.
Prices have risen more than 17.5 cents since Aug. 23, before the storm
began.
Average prices in Texas, the epicenter of the storm, rose more than 3
percent from Friday to Saturday, and are up 12 percent from a week ago.
Refiner Motiva has warned customers along the route of the largest U.S.
fuel pipeline to prepare for shortages after Harvey shut refineries and
cut supply to the line, said a source at a fuel distributor supplied by
Motiva.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Sep/02/images/ads/current/best_friends_sda_120215.png)
Harvey shut refineries that can process up to 4.4 million barrels per
day (bpd) of crude. The plants shut down include Motiva's 603,000 bpd
facility in Port Arthur, Texas, the largest refinery in the country.
Nearly half of the U.S. refining capacity is in the Gulf Coast, a region
with proximity to plentiful crude supplies including Texan oil fields
and also Mexican and Venezuelan oil imports.
“The refineries were built on the Gulf Coast with the idea that we’re
going to import," said Sandy Fielden, director of oil and products
research at Morningstar in Austin, Texas, "That’s why we’re having
problems today because that’s where they were all built.”
[to top of second column] |
![](../images/090217pics/busine93.jpg)
Motorist line-up for gasoline at a Costco gas station in the
aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Cedar Park, Texas, U.S., September
1, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Khursheed
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Sep/02/images/ads/current/rohlfs_lda_072017.png)
The reduction in fuel supplies has forced the Colonial Pipeline, which supplies
fuel from refineries near the Gulf of Mexico to the U.S. Northeast, to reduce
supplies.
Convenience store and gas station chain Circle K, a big buyer from Motiva, said
the company was working with a limited supply.
Some crude oil pipelines have restarted operations. Magellan Midstream Partners
<MMP.N> announced late Friday that it resumed operations on its BridgeTex and
Longhorn crude oil pipelines. The two pipelines transport around 675,000 barrels
per day (bpd) of West Texas crude oil into East Houston.
The company says it expects to resume service on its Houston crude oil
distribution system over the weekend.
U.S. crude production continues to stall following the storm. As of Friday,
volume of crude production still shut-in had declined to about 153,000 bpd, down
from 324,000 bpd just two days ago.
(Reporting by Julia Simon Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
[© 2017 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2017 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Sep/02/images/ads/current/ldn_medical_directory_small2.png) |