Colonial Pipeline Restarted, Gas Supply Will Take Time To Build Back Up
The East Coast is still experiencing a shortage in the gas supply. Experts and government officials warn that it will take some time to refill gasoline supplies as panic buying, a lack of truck drivers and the recent cyber attack all caused a shortage in the supply. According to GasBuddy as of this morning at 7 a.-m. 51% of stations in South Carolina, 69% of stations in North Carolina and 51% of stations in Virginia were run dry.
Operators of the Colonial Pipeline expect with the restart of the system, it should mean things will return to normal by the end of the weekend. On Wednesday, oil industry executives urged Americans to stop hoarding gasoline and warned that panic buying was only making the situation worse. The Biden Administration also announced Wednesday that it would approve a temporary and targeted waiver of the Jones Act which required ships sailing between U.S. ports to be American flagged and domestically built but Alejandro Mayorkas approved the waiver for an individual company ‘in the interest of national defense.’