I just filled up my gas tank at Costco. There was a huge line to do so. Several other stations have the yellow signs on the pumps indicating they have no fuel. I’ve heard news reports of shortages precipitated by the lack of refinery capacity in the Houston area.
Has anyone else experienced gas lines reminiscent of the oil embargo in the 70’s?
Lines at the Sam’s club on Midway and 635 were pretty bad too. Granted the gas there was the most affordable I’ve seen around here.
I’m a product of the 80s so I can only guess it was similar.
Stations seem to have longer lines than normal - but prices have really jumped. I can imagine the lines are long: gas near me is $2.39 (East Arlington) At Costco $2.15, that’s a big difference (but not enough for me to go out of my way to get it, if near it, okay).
It looks like 2 of the 3 refineries that are offline will be up early next week as well as the pipelines to transport it. More concerned about shortages than price.
If there isn’t a line for gas right now it is because the station is out of gas.
Sorta. We saw the lines last night. I’ve been him-hawing about getting diesel for a couple days. I called our Murphy to see how late they were open. He said they only diesel at the moment. I went up to find the line & a tanker putting fuel in. So I went to my Kroger to find they were out of gas & only had Diesel.
Interestingly, those stations around me with only diesel, won’t let you fill up. They’re “out of order” if they don’t have gasoline. So I’m told. From a source I trust, but still, not first hand.
I’m curious how much of this is actually due to the plants being shutdown vs people filling up for fear of a gas shortage, thus causing long lines and a gas shortage. I don’t know enough of about the process of extracting, to refining, to distributing.
This was in yesterday’s news
Family members who are in oil & gas think most of it is due to panic buying and that any real supply issues will be resolved quickly. For example I heard that 7-11 gets most of their DFW gas from Oklahoma. I read that some people have been seen filling up trash cans and anything else they can find that will hold gas…and likely putting that in their garage…I hope this isn’t true but it wouldn’t surprise me. I am just trying to avoid unnecessary travel to conserve gas and I hope that any shortages won’t affect people who are going to Houston to help.
Combination of both. 30% of US refining capacity is out, and most of that is what supplies us. I’m sure the immediate run is do to people needing it to get work, etc. so they want to make sure they get it.
I think the true local shortages will be for a couple of weeks - I also think people will reduce unnecessary travel during this time which will help with the shortage.
There is some.
Statistically, cars are running around with half-empty/full tanks.
If there is a perceived shortage,
Statistically my tank is half-empty, empirically it seems it’s always 1/4< full, or a minus couple Standard Deviations … somebody has to be the outlier on the curve, just wish it weren’t me or at least this end of it. Must be some Schrodinger thing happening here.
The situation begs the question. Do you top off, now that there are shortages adding to the problem, or wait and fill as you normally would hoping to not make it worse but possibly risking having to search for gas?
I keep an ear/eye on the news and top off whenever there is a sign of stuff about to hit the fan.
We had lots of advance warning that Harvey was about to hit the Texas Gulf coast. The logical conclusion from prior experience with tropical storms is that they may disrupt the oil infrastructure.
In the absence of news, I keep an eye on http://www.dallasgasprices.com/ and fill up when there is an indication of a coming price spike or if the price appears to have bottomed.
And then there is this We had another earthquake this morning - #6 by artg_dms showing that Talk sometimes does have a positive benefit.
I spoke to the guy at Costco who was directing traffic at the pumps to facilitate an orderly queue and he said that Costco gets five trucks a day or so for their fueling station. He said that their gas comes from Oklahoma and they have not been told to expect shortages, but then they didn’t expect the extraordinarily long lines this morning either. The price was $2.13 at the Costco at DNT and Park/Plano Parkway.
Fill up. If they need gas more than I do they should have beat me to the pump. Why should I enable their procrastinating habits.
I can say, driving home from the Space at 1AM~5AM the lines at stations don’t seem to exist, so I’ve given them their fair chance to get fuel before going to bed … of course they may view it as I got there before them if it’s after me. Statistically, I’m both a good and a bad guy. But I’d rather statistically have a more full tank than actually empty.
I didn’t even think about shortages until I was on my way home last night and noticed long lines at a few pumps along with some inflated prices. Being at about 1/3 full usually doesn’t bother me, but figuring that things could get scarce I did fill up. I’m not terribly concerned for the long run, but figured better to be safe than sorry.
The real reason is on time inventory. Stations do not keep their tanks filled up all the time. Given that the refineries shutting down has thrown a glitch into the normal dispersal of fuel.
Completely unrelated, does anyone have instructions on building a crank operated siphoning device?