Gasoline prices rise even more after the cyber attack on oil pipelines

Although the Gasoline prices in Southern California have been increasing for months due to the return of vehicles to the roads , in recent days he has done it for a different reason. The computer attack that keeps an oil pipeline closed on the east coast is already having consequences on the other side of the country. In the southeast there have already been increases due to fuel shortages, but the fear of drivers has spread beyond the region.

The Colonial pipeline, which suffered the cyberattack last Friday, is the one that provides the 45% of the supply of the thing west, so its closure raised concerns about the vulnerability of this key infrastructure for the United States. Gorma Manuela resumed operations in some segments of the pipeline late Monday, and Colonial estimates it will restart most of its operations by the weekend, US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said.

Regular gasoline has a national average price of $ 2. 99 dollars per gallon, up 7 cents from last week. In Los Angeles County, where residents are used to rising fuel prices, the cost now stands at $ 4. 16 dollars per gallon, an increase of 8. 25 pennies, based on tracker GasBuddy .

But problems simply finding gasoline have been encountered in some of the locations served by the affected pipeline. In parts of Virginia and Maryland, drivers have had to wait up to five hours to buy gas, as John Patrick, Liberty Petroleum Corp’s chief operating officer says, and publishes Los Angeles Times . Patrick notes that some drivers are making the shortage worse by refilling their tanks even when their tanks have three quarters of fuel.

Note in development