MOSCOW (MRC) -- Colonial Pipeline plans to restart fuel flows late Aug. 30 after completing safety assessments in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, restoring the nation's primary fuel artery for much of the Southeast and the East Coast, reported S&P Global.
Colonial Pipeline had temporarily shut down its Lines 1 and 2 systems from Houston to Greensboro, North Carolina ahead of Category 4 Ida. Colonial's Lines 3 and 4 from North Carolina to New Jersey never ceased operations.
Colonial said service to Lines 1 and 2 should be restored the evening of Aug. 30, pending successfully completion of all restart protocols, one day after Ida swept through Louisiana.
"We want to express our sympathy and concern for the many people who have suffered tremendously because of this hurricane," said Wes Dunbar, Colonial vice president of operations, in a statement. "I also want to thank those who are helping get Colonial back in service as quickly and safely as possible. We know the fuels delivered by our pipeline are important to emergency responders, as well as to our daily lives. We are thankful for the coordination from our local, state and federal partners for their assistance as we work to restore our pipeline into service."
Colonial Pipeline typically delivers more than 100 million gal/d of fuels. Colonial stretches more than 5,500 miles from the Houston refining hub to New York Harbor, supplying about 45% of all the gasoline and diesel fuel consumed on the East Coast. Product typically moves at 3 to 5 mph through the pipeline.
Assuming Colonial comes back online as scheduled, there will not be any fuel shortages unless supplies are exacerbated by panic buying, said fuel analyst Patrick DeHaan of GasBuddy.com.
Category 4 Hurricane Ida devastated much of southern Louisiana and Mississippi on Aug. 29, leaving well more than 1 million electricity customers without power for the foreseeable future.
In advance of the storm, about 95% of the US Gulf's oil and gas production was shut-in, and roughly 2.2 million b/d of oil refining capacity was closed.
We remind that, as MRC informed before, the fourth-largest US refiner Phillips 66 said earlier this month that it put the smaller of its two Louisiana refineries up for sale amid continued losses and an uncertain future for motor fuels. The company is holding talks with a potential buyer on the sale of its 255,600 barrel-per-day (bpd) Alliance refinery in Belle Chasse, Louisiana, according to two people familiar with the matter. The identity of the potential buyer could not immediately be learned. US refiners have closed or sold oil processing plants as the COVID-19 pandemic slashed demand for gasoline and jet fuel, generating losses for the industry.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
MRC