Colonial Pipeline Restarted Line 1 on Sunday

Colonial Pipeline said Line 1 began shipping gasoline between Houston and Linden, New Jersey, on Sunday morning for the first time since a deadly Oct. 31 explosion and fire near Helena, Alabama.

The outage of Line 1, which can carry 1.3 million barrels of gasoline daily from the U.S. Gulf Coast to the New York area roiled wholesale gasoline markets all week and boosted retail prices across the southeastern United States.

In a statement posted on a company website on Sunday, Colonial said it would take three days following the restart for gasoline shipments to begin arriving at the Linden terminal.

One worker was killed and five other members of a maintenance crew were injured on Oct. 31 when a backhoe punched a hole in Line 1, sending a more than 200-foot (61-meter) column of fire up from the damaged pipe.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted waivers to allow Colonial to mix different grades of gasoline once shipments resume.

The 5,500-mile (8,850-km) Colonial Pipeline is the largest U.S. refined products pipeline system and can carry more than 3 million barrels of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel between the Gulf Coast and the New York Harbor area.

Two U.S. Gulf Coast refineries, Exxon Mobil Corp's Baytown, Texas refinery and Total SA (TTFNF)'s Port Arthur Texas, refinery were reported to have cut gasoline production due to the Colonial Pipeline outage.

This the second incident this year to disrupt Colonial Pipeline shipments. A mid-September leak a few miles from the location of the explosion released 336,000 gallons of gasoline and shut Line 1 for 12 days.

The Oct. 31 blast is being investigated by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, the EPA and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration along with state agencies in Alabama.

Reporting by Erwin Seba