ALERT: US Gasoline at 41-year Low - Supply Crunch Underway

Gas Shortages Affecting Some Southeast Motorists

Gas stations from Atlanta, Georgia to Nashville, Tennessee, to Charlotte, North Carolina, are being affected by the effects of Gustav and Ike shutting down 20 percent of the nation's refining capacity, which helped drop U.S. gas inventories to a 41-year low last week.

Refinery capacity is expected to return to normal and boost gas supplies again, although no one is sure exactly when that will happen.

NVDL: Thanks. That's like saying - you are expected to die one day, but no one can say when. Thanks for that bit of news.

Sorry to say but shortages like these will force the US to divert imports - that is oil tanker shipments headed for say, Australia, South Africa or somewhere in South America - their way instead... which means some other country going without. We are in a zone now where fighting over fossil fuel scraps has started, and systems (financial and others) are collapsing as troubles spreads more and more rapidly.

clipped from www.theoildrum.com “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” —Albert Einstein clipped from www.theoildrum.com I am writing this article from Atlanta, one of the places hardest hit by gasoline shortages. A person can drive for miles without finding an open gas station. One of the major reasons for gas shortages is that fact that inventories were not very high going into the hurricanes. Then when not one, but two, hurricanes hit, inventories dropped to the level where there wasn't enough to go around. (In fact, the shortages started even before the second hurricane hit.) How could this happen? Isn't there anyone who cares about gasoline inventories?