asuflyer wrote:

Following the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline which delivers fuels throughout the US Southeast and Northeast, CLT Airport has apparently began experiencing a fuel shortage. While not confirmed there are rumors among staff at CLT that numerous departing flights later in the week next week from CLT will be planned with fuel stops. The first flight affected is AA 730 from CLT to LHR tomorrow which will route CLT-BOS-LHR.

https://www.wcnc.com/article/traffic/ga ... 77b34d2a6d

catiii wrote:

asuflyer wrote:

Following the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline which delivers fuels throughout the US Southeast and Northeast, CLT Airport has apparently began experiencing a fuel shortage. While not confirmed there are rumors among staff at CLT that numerous departing flights later in the week next week from CLT will be planned with fuel stops. The first flight affected is AA 730 from CLT to LHR tomorrow which will route CLT-BOS-LHR.

https://www.wcnc.com/article/traffic/ga ... 77b34d2a6d

Nothing in the article you cited says anything about a Jet A shortage at CLT. You’re posting rumor.

Mods, I hope youll correct the misleading thread title.

Oilman wrote:

Colonial makes deliveries every five days. If a delivery was made Friday before the shutdown, tomorrow is day 4. It’s more likely a delivery was made prior to Friday and tomorrow will be day 5 or later. Many tank farms may carry 2 days of extra inventory in case the pipeline is behind. Transportation fuel supply should be getting very tight in the next few days. Plantation can backfill some of the volume, but the the transit time from Baton Rouge is several days.

Edit: I believe Colonial will be back up at reduced capacity by Friday.

Oilman wrote:

IAD is served exclusively by Colonial, too. EWR has multiple sources, but Colonial is big one.

travaz wrote:

Also being reported that they will be back online by the "end of the week" I sure hope that they get this solved soon. It points out a major vulnerability in our distribution system.

vfw614 wrote:

My excuses for the - most likely pretty dumb - question, but how does it work to deliver jet fuel through a pipeline?

As per wikipedia, there is "one [line] primarily devoted to gasoline and the other carrying distillate products such as jet fuel, Diesel fuel, and home heating oil." How can you deliver Diesel fuel one day and jet fuel the other day without contaminating the jet fuel? Or does "line" refer to a pipeline with several distinct lines for different categories of liquids?

vfw614 wrote:

My excuses for the - most likely pretty dumb - question, but how does it work to deliver jet fuel through a pipeline?

As per wikipedia, there is "one [line] primarily devoted to gasoline and the other carrying distillate products such as jet fuel, Diesel fuel, and home heating oil." How can you deliver Diesel fuel one day and jet fuel the other day without contaminating the jet fuel?

qcpilotxf wrote:

vfw614 wrote:

My excuses for the - most likely pretty dumb - question, but how does it work to deliver jet fuel through a pipeline?

As per wikipedia, there is "one [line] primarily devoted to gasoline and the other carrying distillate products such as jet fuel, Diesel fuel, and home heating oil." How can you deliver Diesel fuel one day and jet fuel the other day without contaminating the jet fuel? Or does "line" refer to a pipeline with several distinct lines for different categories of liquids?

Jet Fuel, Heating Oil, and Diesel are considered "Derivatives" of each other so they can normally cross paths with each other without any major contamination taking place

MohawkWeekend wrote:

From an industry website - ww.aboutpipelines.com/en/blog/how-pipeline-operators-make-the-best-use-of-scarce-pipeline-space/. There is just one pipe.

" Here are three important steps involved in transporting batched products:

The customer schedules the quantity of the product to be transported in batches along the pipeline.
The pipeline operator confirms product specifications and measures the product by density at the receipt and delivery points.
A ticket is used to show the type of product, which customer it belongs to, the amount, and the time and location where the shipment originated and terminated.

One of the key factors in batching is limiting the amount of product that’s mixed in with other products. Any mixed products must be placed in a separate tank and reprocessed to separate. Some pipeline systems use a batch mechanism, called a ‘pipeline pig’, to separate individual parcels"

777Mech wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

Nashville, Charlotte, and Atlanta, per the OP link are fed by this pipeline. The storage tanks must be getting dry already...

This will be disruptive.

Lightsaber

Add BHM, GSP, BWI amongst other smaller airports as well.

bkflyguy wrote:

I believe they also put a pig (basically a plug) between different products, but I could be wrong. They also have pigs with sensors that they use to inspect the pipeline.

Tan Flyr wrote:

A college buddy is in the fuels business..and described it like this..it is like a sandwich..X thousands of barrels of Jet-A, then Diesel, then say fuel oils, all under pressure so minimal bleeding into each other. Each batched is timed as well as ID'd in the line somehow as well. AS another poster indicated it takes several days for product to move from Louisiana to the NE..product moves at around 10-12 mph. so, it is timed as to when a "batch" is cut out of the main pipelines into a terminal storage facility either at an airport or other ones serving numerous fuel needs.

Hope this helped.

zkojq wrote:

Will the situation get bad enough that long haul aircraft have to tanker in fuel for short haul aircraft?

MIflyer12 wrote:

zkojq wrote:

Will the situation get bad enough that long haul aircraft have to tanker in fuel for short haul aircraft?

That's probably avoidable. After all, a lot of short-haul routes from CLT are short enough that they could just fill to fly XXX-CLT-XXX.

On the matter of other AA ops, does PHL have a direct pipeline connection to Delta's Trainer, Pennsylvania, refinery?

vfw614 wrote:

Thanks for all the great explanations. Fascinating.

I guess it is for a reason that I have not become an engineer....

travaz wrote:

If they have to start hauling fuel by truck this is the capacity of tanker trucks. Jet fuel is 6.8 lbs per gallon

Tanker trucks are equipped with a pumping system for loading and off-loading liquids. The capacity is usually controlled by the 80,000 lb gross weight limit for trucks in the US. Small tanker trucks have a maximum capacity of 3,000 gallons, while large tankers have a maximum capacity of 11,600 gallons.

lightsaber wrote:

Nashville, Charlotte, and Atlanta, per the OP link are fed by this pipeline. The storage tanks must be getting dry already...

This will be disruptive.

Lightsaber

zkojq wrote:

Will the situation get bad enough that long haul aircraft have to tanker in fuel for short haul aircraft?

usflyer msp wrote:

MIflyer12 wrote:

zkojq wrote:

Will the situation get bad enough that long haul aircraft have to tanker in fuel for short haul aircraft?

That's probably avoidable. After all, a lot of short-haul routes from CLT are short enough that they could just fill to fly XXX-CLT-XXX.

On the matter of other AA ops, does PHL have a direct pipeline connection to Delta's Trainer, Pennsylvania, refinery?

PHL is largest airport in the world without in-ground fueling.

IADCA wrote:

777Mech wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

Nashville, Charlotte, and Atlanta, per the OP link are fed by this pipeline. The storage tanks must be getting dry already...

This will be disruptive.

Lightsaber

Add BHM, GSP, BWI amongst other smaller airports as well.

If you include the branch lines (which you must if BNA is included) and the supply north of GSO, add CHA, TYS, RDU, RIC, ORF as well. Some of those have backup (or even better) service from Plantation, but they'll all be affected to some degree.

bkflyguy wrote:

I believe they also put a pig (basically a plug) between different products, but I could be wrong. They also have pigs with sensors that they use to inspect the pipeline.

They don't. Colonial shipments come off with transmix.

lightsaber wrote:

I expanded the thread topic to the natural conversation.

IADCA wrote:

777Mech wrote:

Add BHM, GSP, BWI amongst other smaller airports as well.

If you include the branch lines (which you must if BNA is included) and the supply north of GSO, add CHA, TYS, RDU, RIC, ORF as well. Some of those have backup (or even better) service from Plantation, but they'll all be affected to some degree.

bkflyguy wrote:

I believe they also put a pig (basically a plug) between different products, but I could be wrong. They also have pigs with sensors that they use to inspect the pipeline.

They don't. Colonial shipments come off with transmix.

I didn't realize how many other airports would be included.

Oh my...

This could impact the region.

Lightsaber

travaz wrote:

@oilman
I have been told that the pipeline from Texas to Tucson uses water plugs between products. I think (but don't know) that all they ship is Gasoline and separate the grades with water.

lightsaber wrote:

I expanded the thread topic to the natural conversation.

IADCA wrote:

777Mech wrote:

Add BHM, GSP, BWI amongst other smaller airports as well.

If you include the branch lines (which you must if BNA is included) and the supply north of GSO, add CHA, TYS, RDU, RIC, ORF as well. Some of those have backup (or even better) service from Plantation, but they'll all be affected to some degree.

bkflyguy wrote:

I believe they also put a pig (basically a plug) between different products, but I could be wrong. They also have pigs with sensors that they use to inspect the pipeline.

They don't. Colonial shipments come off with transmix.

I didn't realize how many other airports would be included.

Oh my...

This could impact the region.

Lightsaber

IADCA wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

I expanded the thread topic to the natural conversation.

IADCA wrote:

If you include the branch lines (which you must if BNA is included) and the supply north of GSO, add CHA, TYS, RDU, RIC, ORF as well. Some of those have backup (or even better) service from Plantation, but they'll all be affected to some degree.



They don't. Colonial shipments come off with transmix.

I didn't realize how many other airports would be included.

Oh my...

This could impact the region.

Lightsaber

It's already impacting the region on the retail gasoline side in a big way. Airports and airlines are much better equipped to deal with this than the average Joe, and that's especially true at smaller airports served mostly by short RJ flights. For CHA, for example, almost every flight there is served with a stage length/equipment combo that should allow fuel to be tankered in (although query where you buy fuel for ATL-CHA-ATL; both ends of the route are affected). The real pain would be at places that don't have any alternative pipe besides Colonial and also have route profiles that don't lend themselves to workarounds.

travaz wrote:

@oilman
I have been told that the pipeline from Texas to Tucson uses water plugs between products. I think (but don't know) that all they ship is Gasoline and separate the grades with water.

Colonial doesn't do that.

travaz wrote:

@oilman
I have been told that the pipeline from Texas to Tucson uses water plugs between products. I think (but don't know) that all they ship is Gasoline and separate the grades with water.

Oilman wrote:

travaz wrote:

@oilman
I have been told that the pipeline from Texas to Tucson uses water plugs between products. I think (but don't know) that all they ship is Gasoline and separate the grades with water.

The spheres I mentioned that some pipelines use to separate fuels can be filled with water. It’s possible the Texas to Tucson pipeline does that. A pipeline that does use spheres is Explorer, which runs Houston to Chicago. Colonial does not use spheres.

As of this morning, Colonial has some of their system up some of the time. The main lines (Houston to Greensboro) are still down.

Also, no pipeline runs Ethanol through it as said earlier. Biodiesel is not allowed either. Renewable diesel (biodiesel that has been hydrotreated) is commingled with normal diesel.

usflyer msp wrote:

MIflyer12 wrote:

zkojq wrote:

Will the situation get bad enough that long haul aircraft have to tanker in fuel for short haul aircraft?

That's probably avoidable. After all, a lot of short-haul routes from CLT are short enough that they could just fill to fly XXX-CLT-XXX.

On the matter of other AA ops, does PHL have a direct pipeline connection to Delta's Trainer, Pennsylvania, refinery?

PHL is largest airport in the world without in-ground fueling.

Oilman wrote:

Colonial Pipeline is back up. I expect things to normalize by the end of next week.

slcdeltarumd11 wrote:

I think the airports will normalize way earlier then the gas pumps too. The hoarding will continue until people feel it's really over over ie toilet paper and clorox wipes earlier this year.