As I understand it, yes, the Colonial Pipeline supplies around 40% of the gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel for the mid-Atlantic and Southeastern states. The cyber-attack comes on the heels of reported large scale shortages of tanker drivers distributing fuels from the various tank farm terminals served by Colonial to retail outlets. Colonial says they expect to be fully operational by the end of this week, but it would appear that there may be no gasoline to be found pretty much anywhere at least here in NC by some time tomorrow. It's pretty incredible how quickly it developed. The pipeline shut down at some point over the weekend so we're looking at basically a full week out of service. Surely panic buying at the retail level has a role, but when there's nothing whatsoever flowing from the tank farms to the retailers, retailers which normally get truckloads every couple or three days flat out run out of product.buckland said:Foy is this gas pipeline shortage also Diesel?
So they're not just good for bacon, ham and truffle-hunting -- cool!craig333 said:As I understand it they pigs... separate the various products so a single pipeline can carry an assortment of products.
That's correct. As I understand the operations, pigs separate not only grades of products but products of different refiners. Once the various products reach the tank farms, they're stored based on grades/types of fuel and by refiner but not necessarily by retailer. Additive packages unique to retailer fuel brands are added when the tanker trucks are filled from common base fuels, so until it gets into the tanker for the drive to the retailer, all unleaded regular is, well, just unleaded regular. It becomes the "Tiger in your tank" only for the last few miles of its journey.craig333 said:As I understand it they use pigs https://www.rigzone.com/training/insight.asp?insight_id=310&c_id=#:~:text=Additionally%2C%20sealing%20pigs%20are%20used,cast%20pigs%20and%20spherical%20pigs.to separate the various products so a single pipeline can carry an assortment of products.
Yeah, the discussion descends into the mosh pit of partisan politics pretty quickly, which these forums, thank goodness, strictly avoid, but suffice it to say there is some pretty strong criticism out there related to the Gummint's response. From the head of cyber security at Department of Homeland Security, no less.Stray Dog said:The pipeline is evidently flowing again. Great news.
The resolution though is perhaps not so good. Evidently Colonial Pipeline paid a $5,000,000 ransom to the hackers.
Government evidently didn't or couldn't do much to resolve the problem.
As a result we should anticipate many more hack attacks on our basic infrastructure and the payment of ransoms to get them to let go of whatever they strike.
It shouldn't be this way....