Is your state running out of gas?

[mrodgers]

Hahaha sorry! I’m trying not to stress... I MEANT to say I get 425 mikes out of a fill up!

You do not get 425 of me out of a fill up

That auto correct gets me every time too.

 

[mrodgers]

yup this is exactly why we’ll have a real shortage.

Yup, it's not a shortage when everyone panics and runs out and buys 2 week's worth of product in 1 day and has to wait without for the next delivery. It will cause a shortage however when the idiots do it every week now.

 

[Pink Partridge]

The country is not out of gas. There is no shortage. This is theatrics.

The country is not out of gas, but many areas are indeed out of gas.

 

[mrodgers]

The pipeline closure is news for sure. However, if people just followed their usual buying patterns, and only bought gas when they really need it, we'd likely see spot shortages and not major shortages that we're about to see. People are filling their tanks just to fill their tanks, even if they aren't driving much. It's no different than people having cases of toilet paper in their basement at the beginning of the pandemic.

Eventually, when the pipeline is up and running later this week....and as people with full tanks in cars sitting in driveways no longer feel the panic to fill up, this phenomenon will sort itself out.

It's funny from the outside of everything to sit and read the people even in this thread comment about stupid people panicking and in the next sentence state that they went and topped off just in case or informed their family members to top off just in case.

Sure, I topped off. But that was because I topped off a tank from empty because I was driving home and it was normal for me to fill the tank when my reading reaches 0 miles. I unfortunately need to fill the can for the mower yet.

 

[seashoreCM]

Hmmmm. Now that the pipeline is flowing again, are some gas stations trying to second guess the wholesale gas prices and not rushing to restock? Namely if average gas prices drop even a small amount just after the station tanks up, the station will have to price match nearby stations and might have to sell that tankload at a loss.

 

[bcla]

Hmmmm. Now that the pipeline is flowing again, are some gas stations trying to second guess the wholesale gas prices and not rushing to restock? Namely if average gas prices drop even a small amount just after the station tanks up, the station will have to price match nearby stations and might have to sell that tankload at a loss.

Depends. A lot of “branded” stations don’t control their deliveries. Fuel comes whenever (let’s say) the Exxon dispatcher send out a tanker, and at a price that they’re obligated to pay by contract.

 

[RamblingMad]

So they paid the $5 million ransom, which is a reason for this to happen again. Basically companies take out insurance for stuff like this. I do find it interesting that this company is really close to Equifax, so they are both pulling from the same pool of IT folk. I don’t find this shocking.

And this hacking group’s Tor website is great.

 

[TwoMisfits]

So they paid the $5 million ransom, which is a reason for this to happen again. Basically companies take out insurance for stuff like this. I do find it interesting that this company is really close to Equifax, so they are both pulling from the same pool of IT folk. I don’t find this shocking.

And this hacking group’s Tor website is great.

What gets me is they immediately paid it, and it still took 6 days to get this operational in part and (according to them) another 2 weeks for them to get it back to full capacity. That's a really bad indictment on the company.

 

[mom2rtk]

So they paid the $5 million ransom, which is a reason for this to happen again. Basically companies take out insurance for stuff like this. I do find it interesting that this company is really close to Equifax, so they are both pulling from the same pool of IT folk. I don’t find this shocking.

And this hacking group’s Tor website is great.

Wait, really?

That's really bad news. This absolutely will happen again. Probably for more next time.

 

[TwoMisfits]

Wait, really?

That's really bad news. This absolutely will happen again. Probably for more next time.

If you wanna read the news, Bloomberg has the scoop, although they limit articles, so I didn't bother posting the link...

 

[bcla]

Publicly the company isn't saying much, but reports are that they did not pay the ransom and hired a security firm that specializes in ransomware attacks to assist them in getting their operation back on-line and harden their defenses further. All of their data was backed-up, so that wasn't the issue....they needed to shut down before the attack did much more extensive damage....to stop the bleeding if you will. I'm reading it will take at least a week to two weeks for things to get completely back to normal. The fuel in this pipeline only travels at 5mph, so it will take time to fill storage tanks that way. In the meantime a fleet or tankers, trucks and trains are assisting in keeping the fuel moving.

It still moves a lot of fuel, which was still in the pipeline. The panic buying and rapid depletion of tank farms was one thing, but if it moves 3 million barrels per day they should be able to move that much based on what’s “still in the pipeline”.

 

[mom2rtk]

If you wanna read the news, Bloomberg has the scoop, although they limit articles, so I didn't bother posting the link...

Sorry, I have just had a lot going on this morning so hadn't had time yet.

 

[China Expat]

Southern California seems fine.

 

[wvjules]

Southern California seems fine.

It should. It was/is an East Coast issue.

 

[Darcy03231]

Not where I live (central NH). DD #1 lives in SC and she waited in line for gas for an hour and half.

 

[bcla]

It should. It was/is an East Coast issue.

Panic buying has been depleting gas stations faster than tankers could come in to deliver fuel. Even in places where the pipeline didn’t really matter, like Florida.

There were never real local fuel shortages per se. From what I heard, some gas stations might not have had access to fuel because their particular supplier couldn’t provide fuel at their local fuel depots. Fuel depots never ran out.

 

[RamblingMad]

Panic buying has been depleting gas stations faster than tankers could come in to deliver fuel. Even in places where the pipeline didn’t really matter, like Florida.

There were never real local fuel shortages per se. From what I heard, some gas stations might not have had access to fuel because their particular supplier couldn’t provide fuel at their local fuel depots. Fuel depots never ran out.

This pipeline had issues a couple of years ago. People were primed to get gas. The human behavior makes perfect sense. It’s not a reliable company.

 

[Christine]

Northern VA here, right off I-95. Drove around a 15 miles radius this morning and not one station had any gas.

 

[bcla]

If you wanna read the news, Bloomberg has the scoop, although they limit articles, so I didn't bother posting the link...

Reprinted on Yahoo Finance in its entirety.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/colonial-pipeline-paid-hackers-nearly-141548661.html​

Such guidance provides a quandary for victims who have to weigh the risks of not paying with the costs of lost or exposed records. The reality is that many choose to pay, in part because the costs may be covered if they have cyber-insurance policies.​

​

“They had to pay,” said Ondrej Krehel, chief executive officer and founder of digital forensics firm LIFARS and a former cyber expert at Loews Corp., which owns Boardwalk Pipeline. “This is a cyber cancer. You want to die or you want to live? It’s not a situation where you can wait.”​

​

Krehel said a $5 million ransom for a pipeline was “very low.” “Ransom is usually around $25 million to $35 million for such a company. I think the threat actor realized they stepped on the wrong company and triggered a massive government response,” he said.​

 

[Ms.Minnie]

I think it's really bad that they paid a ransom to get back on line. I know we need the free flow of fuel to run our country but to fall prey to blackmail is really bad. Very scary stuff!


For the past two days I can’t get into “bill pay” to do on-line bill pay. I have sent two different messages with no response, I tried calling the bank but it was a long wait time so I hung up. Kind of makes me wonder what's going on...have they been hacked too?