A Herd Mentality--Part II

Most people have no idea how the gasoline they rely on to transport them to work, school, and the grocery store each week actually gets to their local gas stations.

Believe me, it doesn’t arrive straight from the oil well in a tanker truck and it isn’t magically “beamed” Star Trek style from the refinery to the local Quick Trip or Gas & Go in the blink of an eye.

Those of us here on the gulf coast and most the Atlantic coast enjoy the delivery of our petroleum products using the services of The Colonial Pipeline Company. The 5,500 mile long Colonial Pipeline was constructed beginning in 1962 and now extends from Houston, Texas to the port of Long Island, NY, with branches running to major cities in Tennessee, Georgia, South and North Carolina, and Virginia. A short feeder branch runs from the port of New Orleans into the pipeline.

The pipeline is actually two 30” lines running parallel to each other through a network of pumping stations, terminal tank farms, and re-refining stations located along the length of the pipeline. Gasoline and other petroleum products are distributed locally via rail car and tanker truck--tanker trucks always being the end delivery vehicle.

The pipeline is a very cheep, efficient means of making petroleum product deliveries, but beleive me when I say that the tree huggers and enviro-fascists raised a bunch of hell when the pipeline was being permitted and constructed, and they continue to fight its’ expansion tooth and nail today. It seems to me that a big pipe full of oil buried in the ground presents a lower risk than a 75,000 pound tanker truck full of gasoline rolling down the road with the idiots I normally see driving around, in front of, and underneath it.

The thing about the pipeline is that it still takes an average of 18-½ days for product to move from Texas to the other end of the pipeline in NY. The pipeline norally moves an average of 100,000,000 gallons (yes, that's 100 MILLION gallons) of petroleum products each day, but it has been shut down since last Sunday, just resuming partial operation at 6:00 PM CST on Wednesday 8/31 and it is up to about 38% right now according to their latest press release.

The problem has not been physical damage, it has been rather a lack of electricity in Louisiana and Mississippi to power the mid-line pumping stations located along the length of the pipeline. They expect to be back to 74% capacity by Sunday and into the mid 80% capacity by next week.

So my advice to everyone is to sit back, marinade some ribs, pop open a cold beer, and stay close to home this Labor Day weekend. Chill out, you don’t HAVE to drive cross country this holiday--regardless of your prior plans.

The gas is on the way, and the price will go back down once things settle down a little. All you are doing by panicking and paying the current prices is guaranteeing high costs for yourself. I’m personally waiting to buy my next gas because I PLANNED ahead.

And besides, it could be worse--we all could be sweating and hiding from the terorists in the Big Easy, ya’ know what I mean?