Has the latest Colonial Pipeline outage impacted gas availability in DC?

New Colonial Pipeline issue reported as DC customers struggle

The Colonial Pipeline has reported a new issue as it recovers from a crippling ransomware attack.

WASHINGTON - There are still gas shortage issues in the District of Columbia, leaving some to wonder whether the Colonial Pipeline’s latest outage has something to do with it.

"Our internal server that runs our nomination system experienced intermittent disruptions this morning due to some of the hardening efforts that are ongoing and part of our restoration process. These issues were not related to the ransomware or any type of reinfection," Colonial Pipeline tweeted on Tuesday.

By 3:20 p.m., he company said their shippers processing system was restored, claiming it more so prevented customers from booking space and monitoring fuel travel, and not disrupting service.

Gas Buddy’s Patrick De Haan also told FOX 5 he is not seeing not seeing the outage impact the D.C. region. He compared it more to something like your company email experiencing an outage every now and then.

"No change, we continue to see improvements. Stations are resupplying throughout the early morning hours. Outage numbers do start to go up during the afternoons as Americans fills their tanks again, but then overnight again, improvement continues," said De Haan, GasBuddy’s Head of Petroleum Analysis.

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So why are there still so many DC gas stations out of fuel?

"This is like the 3rd station I’ve come to, the Exon over here is out of gas," said Mckinley Marshall, visiting the Shell gas station on 12th and Otis Sts. Northeast, "Well I live in Virginia. So near my house, everything’s good. But it seems like this area is a little short."

De Haan believes this is just part of the catch-up game to last week’s incredible demand in service. Panic buying did a lot of damage, especially in higher density areas, De Haan added.

John Townsend with AAA Mid-Atlantic is also pointing to what he says is a lack of diversity in the District’s gasoline market. Townsend says Capitol Petroleum Group owns around close of half of the city’s gas stations and provides fuel to a number of others. A Google Search shows the company and affiliates was sued by the D.C. Attorney General back in November 2020 for price gouging during the pandemic.

FOX 5 did reach out to the company for response.

Townsend tells FOX 5, AAA Mid Atlantic also complained about the lack of gas stations in the District. The transportation expert said there’s around 112 gas stations for under 700,000 District residents, compared to around 111 gas stations in Binghamton, New York, which has only has around 45,000 residents.

"The people like me that have to go to work every day, we can’t get to work on time just because we have to go to five different gas stations just because we go to pick up some gas," said Kiyana Ingram on Tuesday.

GasBuddy says there’s no need for panic buying, just try to fill-up in the morning if you need to.

While slower, Da Haan says there is improvement with D.C. showing around 66% of gas stations out of fuel this week -- down from 91% at its peak.

Virginia and Maryland are at 24 and 21% -- down about half from last week.