Colonial Pipeline restarts, delivers to Upstate

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Following a five-day shutdown, Colonial Pipeline restarted operations Wednesday at 5 p.m. after delivering more than 41 million gallons of gasoline to Spartanburg, Belton, Charlotte and five other East Coast markets.

Colonial Pipeline warned Southern drivers that it will take several days for the product delivery supply chain to right and some markets will experience service disruptions, according to a news release on Wednesday.

In the meantime, the supplier has been operating the pipeline manually and transporting gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from its reserves to markets along the pipeline. Markets experiencing the greatest supply constraints or that are not being serviced by other fuel delivery systems are being prioritized, according to the release.

By Tuesday, more than 967,000 barrels of fuel had been delivered to Atlanta, Belton, Spartanburg, Charlotte, Greensboro and Baltimore, as well as Woodbury and Linden, N.J.

The company also procured an additional 2 million barrels, or 84 million gallons, from refineries to deploy once the pipeline went back online.

Along with waived hour-of-operation restrictions for fleets transporting fuel to states under a regional emergency declaration, the federal government also waived restrictions on gasoline volatility measures to help alleviate supply constraints in several impacted states, according to the release.

According to data from the app Gas Buddy, gasoline prices in Greenville, Union and parts of Anderson County bordering Lake Hartwell remain in the $2.50 to $2.83 per gallon range, while much of the Upstate has risen to $2.67 to $2.83. Gas prices in Spartanburg and parts of Anderson County range from $2.83 to $3.17.

According to data from an eight-hour stretch Thursday morning, customers reported that a majority of the gas stations in the Greenville, Spartanburg and Anderson area are out of gas, but various Spinx, QuikTrip, Costco, Marathon, Ingles, Exxon and Shell locations throughout the Upstate still have regular grade gasoline at the pump.