Phoenix Gasoline Stations Running Short
August 18, 2003
By BETH DEFALCO
Associated Press Writer
PHOENIX -- Gasoline here has been treated like liquid gold in the week and a half since safety concerns shut down the sole pipeline supplying the city.
Motorists drove on fumes from gas station to gas station Sunday night, searching for one that still had fuel. The stations still open had drivers lined up for hours waiting for their chance to pump -- and pay an increasingly high price for the privilege.
"I've been losing money for the last week," cab driver Dominick Santandrea said, complaining about prices in the $1.90-a-gallon range Sunday. "If this keeps up, the cab rates will go up."
The pipeline between Phoenix and Tucson ruptured July 30, spilling about 12,000 gallons of fuel, and the operator shut it down Aug. 8 because of concerns that there could be more problems.
Since then, gas has been trucked up from Tucson, and AAA has been urging drivers not to panic.
"If people are panic buying, there is no need to panic. There is fuel coming into Arizona at the same amount as two weeks ago. It is just extremely slow," AAA Arizona spokeswoman Kim Pappas-Miller said.
"People are mistaking slow distribution with a fear that we are running out of gas, and that is not happening at all."
Executives of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, the Houston company that operates the pipeline, got approval from federal regulators Thursday for their plan to repair the line and test it for safety.
But company officials say it would be one or two weeks before the pipeline is running again.
The Arizona Corporation Commission, which oversees pipeline safety, expects to complete an investigation into the line break within two months, spokeswoman Heather Murphy said.
About 70 percent of the gas Phoenix uses comes from California, and the rest from Texas, and all of it comes from Tucson through the single pipeline.
* __
On the Net:
Kinder Morgan: http://www.kindermorgan.com/
AAA Arizona: http://www.aaa-arizona.com/
http://www.newsday.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=sns-ap-phoenix-gas-crunch§ion=%2Fnews%2Fnationworld%2Fnation%2Fwire