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A critical conduit supplying fuel to the US Northeast was halted on Wednesday, when the Colonial Pipeline temporarily shut operations after a spill, the latest disruption to energy flows following an outage to the Keystone oil pipeline last month.
Some product was released at Colonial’s Witt delivery station near Danville, Virginia, prompting the shutdown of its Line 3, spokeswoman Meredith Stone said in an email. The company is planning a restart at around 12 PM Eastern time on Saturday, according to a notice shared with users of the pipeline.
Colonial’s Line 3 transports refined products such as distillates and gasoline to the New York Harbor market from Houston, via Greensboro, North Carolina, and is part of a broader system that supplies fuels to the eastern US. The system’s key gasoline conduit was shut for nearly a week in 2021 after a cyberattack.
Colonial’s vast product system which includes Lines 1, 2, 3 and 4 are a vital source of fuels for the eastern US. Lines 1 and 2 extend from the Houston area and meet in Charlotte, North Carolina, to form Line 3 into New York Harbor.