Now, "They" Are Demanding That Big Oil Build More Pipelines ... Or Something ... Maybe Greenpeace Can Help

I can't make this stuff up.

Reuters is reporting:

Farmers, truckers and politicians [in Arkansas] are up in arms over plans by Enterprise Product Partners to end deliveries on a key pipeline that ships diesel and jet fuel from Texas on July 1. Instead, Enterprise plans to reverse the line to ship ethane, chiefly used as a petrochemical feedstock, from the shale fields in Ohio and Pennsylvania to the Gulf Coast.

The Arkansas attorney general has appealed to federal regulators to intervene, local merchants warn of a "catastrophe," truckers fear a jump in prices and even a U.S. Air Force base is stocking up on extra fuel.

Enterprise, which announced its plans for the so-called TE Products line in March, says demand for interstate shipments on the 230,000 barrels per day line has fallen sharply in recent years, and that it is not "commercially feasible" to invest an estimated $50 million to upgrade a parallel line.

 

Local fuel groups argue it is an energy lifeline and that closing it will roil the local market, raising prices as fuel is fetched from further afield and sparking shortages when demand normally met by the pipeline shifts to other sources.

Maybe Greenpeace can provide some emergency fuel for Arkansas. The USAF can always fall back on its $59/gallon algae-based jet fuel. That was the whole purpose of the USAF-algae project, to provide a reliable source of fuel if traditional supplies were shut off.

The Air Force base in Little Rock will be topping up its fuel tanks to add an inventory buffer while it looks into alternative supply sources, says Mimi Schirmacher, a spokeswoman for Defense Logistics Agency-Energy, which sources energy for U.S. military forces.

I cannot make this stuff up -- although the $59 figure might be $26. I honestly can't remember.