Within minutes of taking over as the nearest delivered contract in the evening hour of October 31, December RBOB futures spiked 18.56cts or 12.8% to a five-month high on the spot continuous chart of $1.6351 gallon in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange triggered by the second outage on the ever important Colonial Pipeline in less than two months.

A crew working on main Line 1, a massive 40-inch pipeline with a flow rate of 1.37 million bpd that transports gasoline, struck the pipeline with a track hoe and caused an explosion and subsequent fire. One worker was killed and five were hospitalized.

The accident occurred in Shelby County, Alabama, several miles away from a pipeline rupture discovered September 9 that shut Line 1 which later operated with restricted service for nearly two weeks through September 21. Roughly 252,000 gallons of gasoline leaked from the rupture, with Colonial constructing a 500-foot above ground bypass around the leak to restore full service. The bypass was set to be removed sometime between November 2 and 10.

Colonial Pipeline again shut Lines 1 and 2 October 31, with the latter a 36-inch pipeline that transports distillate fuels, including diesel, heating oil and jet fuel. Line 2 has a 1.16 million bpd flow rate. Both Lines 1 and 2 originate in Houston, Texas, and run in a northeast direction to Greensboro, North Carolina, the location of a tank farm and interconnection point on the Colonial system. From Greensboro, Line 3 runs to Linden, New Jersey, and Line 4 to Dorsey, Maryland, both 32-inch pipelines.

The Colonial Pipeline is a critical conduit for delivering refined fuels to states along the eastern seaboard, with the 2.5 million bpd 5,500 mile pipelin...