US operator Colonial Pipeline has closed down one of its lines delivering fuel to the north-east coast following a spill in Virginia.
Colonial Pipeline was forced to shut down Line 3 for unplanned maintenance after product spilled at the Witt delivery station near Danville, Virginia.
The impact of the product release was contained within Colonia’s property, the company said in a statement. The restart of the pipeline is expected on January 7.
Line 3 is an 885,000 barrels per day (bpd) pipeline that moves all products – gasoline, diesel, heating oil, and jet fuel – from Greensboro in North Carolina to Linden, New Jersey. Colonial’s Line 3 is part of a wider pipeline system carrying fuels to the East Coast.
The biggest disruption to the vital pipeline was a seven day shutdown of the pipeline system after a cyberattack in May 2021. Colonial Pipeline carries some 45% of the gasoline and diesel fuel the east coast of the US consumes.
The Colonial Pipeline disruption is the second oil/fuel pipeline shutdown in as many months.
In early December, TC Energy, the operator of the Keystone Pipeline, had to shut down the oil pipeline after a leak south of Steele City spilled oil into a creek in Kansas.
A few days later, the leak was contained, and no drinking water has been impacted, the Environmental Protection Agency said in a statement at the time. At the end of December, TC Energy said the Keystone Pipeline had resumed operations.
Colonial shuts vital pipeline following accidental spill
