This story was updated at 6:45 p.m. on May 15, 2021.
ATLANTA — The operator of the nation’s largest gasoline pipeline — hit on May 7 by a ransomware attack — announced Saturday that it has resumed “normal operations,” delivering fuel to its markets, including a large swath of the East Coast.
Colonial Pipeline shut down its 5,500 miles of pipelines — typically carrying nearly half of the East Coast’s fuel supply — for five days.
“Since that time, we have returned the system to normal operations, delivering millions of gallons per hour to the markets we serve,” Colonial Pipeline said in a tweet Saturday. Those markets include Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Washington D.C., Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
“All of these markets are now receiving product from our pipeline,” the company said, noting how its employees across the pipeline “worked safely and tirelessly around the clock to get our lines up and running.”
Gas shortages, which spread from the South, all but emptying stations in Washington, D.C., have been improving since a peak on Thursday night. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told The Associated Press on Friday that the nation is “over the hump” on gas shortages, with about 200 stations returning to service every hour.
“It’s still going to work its way through the system over the next few days, but we should be back to normal fairly soon,” she said.
Some stations were still out of gas in Raleigh, N.C., on Saturday. Driver Jermaine Barnes told CBS17 the shortage has made him more conservative with his trips.
“I’m not going places I don’t need to go,” he said. “I’m not visiting people. I’m watching where I’m driving. I’m doing everything different right now.”
Some drivers responded angrily on Facebook on Saturday to a post by ABC-13 in Asheville, N.C., about the pipeline resuming normal operations. Several said the majority of gas stations still did not have fuel and those that did receive deliveries were quickly selling out.
Martha Meade, manager for public and government relations at AAA Mid-Atlantic, said many gas stations in the Virginia area still did not have gas on Saturday. But she said “lines have diminished from the height of the crisis” and “panic buying has subsided.”
Multiple sources confirmed to The Associated Press that Colonial Pipeline had paid the criminals who committed the cyberattack a ransom of nearly $5 million in cryptocurrency for the software decryption key required to unscramble their data network.
The ransom — 75 Bitcoin — was paid May 8, a day after the criminals locked up Colonial’s corporate network, according to Tom Robinson, co-founder of the cryptocurrency-tracking firm Elliptic. Prior to Robinson’s blog post, two people briefed on the case had confirmed the payment amount to AP.
The pipeline system delivers about 45% of the gasoline consumed on the East Coast.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Friday extended the suspension of the state’s gas tax to help control the price of fuel. His new executive order also extended an increase in weight limits for trucks carrying fuel and prohibited price gouging. The previous executive order had been scheduled to expire Saturday.
The Biden administration on Thursday approved a waiver to allow a foreign tanker to deliver gas to an East Coast seaport and may approve more waivers. Federal trucking rules also have been relaxed.
”The idea is to look at every … tool we have to help mitigate the shortage and get back to normal as quickly as we can,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a video interview Friday afternoon.
As fuel returns to pumps across across the U.S., officials continue to urge drivers not to panic or hoard gasoline.
“Really, the gasoline is coming,’‘ Ms. Granholm said. “If you take more than what you need, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in terms of the shortages. Let’s share a little bit with our neighbors and everybody should know that it’s going to be OK.’‘
First Published May 15, 2021, 6:39pm
