Gas supply improves in York, Chester, Lancaster counties as pipeline resumes operation
Gas supply in York, Lancaster, and Chester, SC, counties is returning as the Colonial Pipeline returns to full operation.
The temporary shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline caused interruptions in gas supply across the Southeast.
South Carolina was one of the states most impacted, along with North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and southern Virginia -- the states that most rely on Colonial for gas supply.
A GasBuddy report on Wednesday, based on real-time crowd-sourced data, showed 38% of South Carolina stations had fuel outages. Last Thursday, the proportion of outages peaked at 54%.
With the pipeline functioning again, supply in the tri-counties, compared to last week, has improved.
The Herald surveyed eight York County gas stations last Wednesday that had no gas. Now, seven have gas.
Last week, one out of 10 stations surveyed in Lancaster County had regular gas; this week, seven of the same stations had gas.
In Chester, seven of 11 stations surveyed had gas, compared to one last week.
Employees said gas was delivered Tuesday and early Wednesday.
Average gas prices are still up in all three counties. The average cost of gas in York County is up 13 cents from last week, 11 cents in Chester County and 10 cents in Lancaster.
But gas prices in South Carolina are beginning to stabilize; the average price in the state did not change from Tuesday to Wednesday.
State prices are still up 1.6 cents from last week’s average, 24.6 cents from last month’s average and $1.19 cents from last year’s average.
In a statement Monday, Colonial said the company “continues to make substantial progress.”
“We can now report that we are transporting refined products (gasoline, diesel and jet fuel) at normal levels and are fully operational. It will take some time for the fuel supply chain to fully catch-up,” the statement said.
Representatives from AAA Carolinas said there is not yet a determined date that gas supply will “return to normal.”
This story was originally published May 19, 2021 at 12:15 PM.
