Metro Atlanta could be a dry city, gas wise, by Labor Day, the AJC predicts…
Metro Atlanta drivers are facing the possibility of paying considerably more than $3 a gallon for gas by Labor Day – if they can get it at all.
The metro Atlanta region generally has about a 10-day supply of gasoline in inventory, said BP spokesman Michael Kumpf. The pipelines have been down for two days.
Alpharetta-based Colonial Pipeline Co., cut off from its suppliers on the Gulf Coast, is now pumping gas from huge storage tanks, many in Powder Springs. Whether electric power can be restored to the pipeline pumps before supplies run out is “the great uncertainty … that hangs over all of us,” said Daniel Moenter, a spokesman for Marathon Ashland Petroleum, a major supplier of metro Atlanta’s fuel.
Some suppliers are rationing gasoline to retailers, so some stations may already be near empty.
With supplies uncertain, oil companies and larger wholesalers are ratcheting up prices, partly to slow demand. Some local wholesalers already are paying 65 to 80 cents per gallon more than they paid three days ago. That kind of price increase will hit the pumps within a few days.
Let the price gouging, gas hoarding and mass hysteria begin… Apparently there are already lines around blocks and prices soaring up to $3.56, as well as people being limited to sales of $10, basically 3½ gallons…
At a press conference this afternoon, Gov. Sonny Perdue said the fuel shortage facing Georgians is a short-term problem. He also reported Alpharetta-based Colonial Pipeline, the largest pipeline distributing fuel into Georgia, expects to be operational again by Labor Day weekend.
Perdue said he asked the federal Department of Transportation (DOT) to lift truck driving restrictions, thereby allowing deliveries 24 hours a day. DOT has approved the request, allowing fuel to be more easily distributed throughout the state.
EDIT (10:55pm): Perdue declares state of emergency…
Declaring that there’s “credible evidence” of price-gouging at the gas pumps, Gov. Sonny Perdue late Wednesday signed an executive order threatening to impose heavy fines on gasoline retailers who overcharge Georgia drivers.
“When you prey upon the fears and the paranoia, it is akin to looting, and it is abominable,” Perdue said at a hastily called, 6 p.m. press conference.
“I’m frankly embarrassed to have to do this,” the governor said.
Less than four hours earlier, Perdue said there was little he could do. But he told reporters that, after hearing reports of gas prices in the $4, $5 and $6 range, he and his staff determined that they could declare a state of emergency and put into place the state’s anti-price gouging law.
That law was last used last year to keep hotels and motels from overcharging people fleeing from Hurricane Ivan.
Derrick Dickey, a Perdue spokesman, said retailers who violate the law could be hit with a fine of up to $5,000 for each person they overcharge and up to $15,000 if the victim is a senior citizen.
The governor told reporters that the state can track what retailers pay for their gas at the terminal and what they then charge consumers.
“I want it stopped, and I want it stopped now,” Perdue said.