Tag Archives: Fuel shortages

Haiti crippled by fuel shortages as gang leader demands prime minister resign

By Brian Ellsworth and Gessika Thomas

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -Haiti’s streets were unusually quiet on Tuesday and gas stations remained dry as gangs blocked the entrance to ports that hold fuel stores and the country’s main gang boss demanded that Prime Minister Ariel Henry resign.

Days-long fuel shortages have left Haitians with few transport options and forced the closure of some businesses. Hospitals, which rely on diesel generators to ensure electricity due to constant blackouts, may shut down as well.

The situation has put further pressure on a population already struggling under a weakening economy and a wave of gang kidnappings, which include the abduction earlier this month of a group of Canadian and American missionaries.

Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, leader of the ‘G9’ coalition of gangs in the metropolitan area of the capital Port-au-Prince, said in a radio interview on Monday night that he would ensure safe passage of fuel trucks if Henry leaves office.

“The areas under the control of the G9 are blocked for one reason only – we demand the resignation of Ariel Henry,” Cherizier said in an interview on Haiti’s Radio Mega.

“If Ariel Henry resigns at 8:00 am, at 8:05 am we will unblock the road and all the trucks will be able to go through to get fuel.”

A spokesperson for Henry’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Reuters was unable to contact Cherizier.

His statements show how gangs have taken on an increasingly political role following the July assassination of President Jovenel Moise. Cherizier has said Henry should “answer questions” linking him to Moise’s murder. Henry has denied any involvement.

Elections had originally been scheduled for November but were suspended after Henry last month dismissed the council that organizes elections, which critics had accused of being biased in favor of Moise. Henry has promised to appoint a new non-partisan council that will set a new date.

Kidnappings have been in the headlines for months as Haitians from all walks of life face abduction by the increasingly powerful gangs.

The missionaries traveling as part of a trip organized by Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries was abducted by a gang called 400 Mawozo that operates east of the capital and is seeking a ransom of $1 million for each person.

Christian Aid Ministries asked people in a statement on Tuesday to remember both those “being held hostage as well as those recovering from the experience of being kidnapped.”

‘THE WORST I’VE SEEN’

Haiti’s foreign aid bureau BMPAD, which oversees fuel procurement, tweeted a video saying the country has 150,000 barrels of diesel and 50,000 barrels of gasoline, with another 50,000 barrels of gasoline set to arrive on Wednesday.

A total 100,000 barrels of diesel and gasoline would supply Haiti’s fuel needs for five to seven says, said Marc Andre Deriphonse, head of the country’s service station owners’ association ANAPROSS.

Businesses have been warning that they may have to halt operations for lack of fuel. Telecoms firms said some cell towers are no longer in operation.

“This is the worst I’ve seen,” said one motorcycle taxi driver waiting to pick up passengers outside Port-au-Prince, when asked about the fuel shortages. He declined to give his name.

Motorcycle drivers strap one-gallon containers to their bikes in the hopes of filling them with fuel sold on the black market. A gallon of gas on the street can now fetch $20, compared with typical filling station prices of around $2.

Transportation industry leaders have called for strikes to protest the wave of kidnappings, which have disproportionately affected truck drivers and public transport workers.

United Nations children’s agency UNICEF on Sunday said it had negotiated fuel deliveries to Haitian hospitals but that the provider later refused to make the deliveries, citing security conditions.

At one police station near Port-au-Prince, two officers had been unable to get to work due to fuel shortages, according to a police official, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak with reporters.

“Most of our vehicles have about a quarter of a tank,” he said.

(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth and Gessika Thomas in Port-au-Prince, Additional reporting by Brad Brooks, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Truckers in Brazil disband blockade after provoking fuel shortages

By Roberto Samora and Gram Slattery

SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Truckers blockading a major refinery in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais disbanded on Friday, allowing fuel supplies to normalize in the nation’s second most populous state.

The protesters, principally truckers who deliver fuel, had been demanding a decrease in taxes on diesel. Since Thursday, they had blocked roads near the REGAP refinery near state capital Belo Horizonte, an action that spooked industry leaders and motorists and caused some gas stations in Minas Gerais to run low on fuel.

Truckers have grown increasingly vocal in recent months as a rise in global crude prices has pushed up the cost of diesel domestically and eaten into margins. Trucker groups have threatened a general strike next week, a move that could prove crippling for Brazil’s economy, if widely observed.

A truckers strike over high fuel prices in 2018 ground the economy to a halt, and destroyed the remaining political capital of the already unpopular government at the time. As a result, Brasilia remains attentive to their demands.

On Thursday evening, President Jair Bolsonaro, who is expected to run for re-election next year, said that the government would give Brazil’s 750,000 truckers 400 reais ($70) each, to help cushion the impacts of rising fuel prices.

Shortly after, four key Treasury officials quit amid signs the government is looking to lift a constitutional spending cap, a move that battered local equities markets and the real currency.

Speaking in Brasilia on Friday, Bolsonaro played down overspending concerns, saying that the payment to truckers would cost the government less than 4 billion reais in total.

Brazil-listed shares in Vibra Energia SA and Ultrapar Participacoes SA, the owners of the nation’s largest and second-largest gas station chains, respectively, were both down over 3.5% in afternoon trade. The benchmark Bovespa equities index was off 1.1%.

(Reporting by Roberto Samora in Sao Paulo and Gram Slattery in Rio de Janeiro, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

With fuel scarce, Yemen’s forests are next casualty of war

By Khaled Abdullah

KHAMIS BANISAAD, Yemen (Reuters) – Yemeni lumberjack Ali al-Emadi spends hours chopping down an acacia tree with an axe as his 12-year-old nephew helps out splitting logs.

In a country blighted by war, Emadi had to turn to logging in his northern al-Mahweet region to eke out a living. An economic collapse has wiped out the farming and building work he used to travel around the country for.

But with demand for firewood soaring due to fuel shortages, there are now concerns that the country’s humanitarian crisis, with millions facing starvation, has compounded the risk of deforestation – threatening both the environment of Yemen and any hope of a long-term livelihood for men like Emadi.

“The owners of bakeries … use wood and stone to heat their ovens. In the past, they used to use gas, but now there is only wood,” Emadi said.

“Should there be good quantity of wood available, we make a living, thank God. But nowadays trees are scarce,” the father of seven said. “If I get something, we eat. At least we live or die together.”

More than six years of war between the recognized government backed by a Saudi-led coalition and the Houthi movement aligned with Iran has killed tens of thousands of people and left 80% of Yemen’s population reliant on aid.

The fuel shortages due to a coalition blockade on Houthi-held areas, including limiting access to the main port of Hodeidah, have led businesses and families to swap diesel and gas for firewood. The alliance says the blockade is needed to foil arms smuggling.

TREES UPROOTED

Around 886,000 trees are felled annually to feed bakeries and restaurants in the capital Sanaa alone, said Abdullah Abul-Futuh, head of biodiversity and natural reserves at Yemen’s Environment Protection Authority in the city, which is run by Houthi authorities along with most of northern Yemen.

Some 5 million trees have been cut down over the past three years across the north, he said.

“That is the equivalent of 213 square km (82 sq miles) of forests, knowing that only 3.3% of Yemen’s total area is classified as forests,” Abul-Futuh said.

The authority could not provide comparative figures, saying this was a recent phenomenon.

After gas was discovered in the Marib region in the 1980s, wood cutting became limited to remote areas but the war has choked Yemen’s energy output, forcing a reliance first on imports and now on wood from trees more usually used to build homes.

Yemen has few woodlands but a relatively rich variety of flora in the oil-producing Arabian Peninsula desert region. In al-Mahweet, known for its thick canopies, several types of acacia, cedar and spruce are vanishing.

Lumberjacks who have the means buy an acacia tree from land owners for the equivalent of around $100 and then sell logs to traders who send them to the cities.

A 5-tonne truck loaded with logs nets the equivalent of $300-$700 in Sanaa, depending on the wood and haulage distance.

“Demand depends on the number of fuel ships that make it to Hodeidah port. These days it (demand) is very high,” said logger Sulaiman Jubran, who scratches a living selling firewood to visiting traders.

“We are scared the country will become a desert, it is already happening … you no longer see the trees that once covered the mountains,” he said.

Forests are largely privately owned and poor families were traditionally allowed to chop wood for free as long as they only cut branches and spared the trunks for regeneration.

“Now, we uproot them with mattocks (pickaxe) .. nothing is left,” Emadi said.

(Additional reporting and writing by Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Ghaida Ghantous and Alison Williams)

Biden says East Coast fuel shortages to end in days as pipeline reopens

By Stephanie Kelly

(Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday said that U.S. motorists can expect filling stations to begin returning to normal this weekend even as shortages gripped some areas amid restart of the top U.S. fuel pipeline after it was shut by a ransomware attack.

The Colonial Pipeline, which carries 100 million gallons per day of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, will take some time to fully recover and could still suffer “hiccups,” he said. Colonial began supplying some fuel to most regions along its 5,500 mile (8,850 km) route.

The pipeline resumed computer-controlled pumping late Wednesday after adding safety measures.

The shutdown caused gasoline shortages and emergency declarations from Virginia to Florida, led two refineries to curb production, and spurred airlines to reshuffle refueling operations.

The pipeline’s restart should bring supplies to some hard-hit areas as soon as Thursday, said U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

“Relief is coming,” added Jeanette McGee, a spokeswoman for motor travel group AAA.

Motorists’ tempers frayed as panic buying led stations to run out even where supplies were available. On Thursday about 70% of gas stations in North Carolina were without fuel, while around 50% of stations in Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia had outages, tracking firm GasBuddy said.

The average national gasoline price rose above $3.00 a gallon, the highest since October 2014, the American Automobile Association said, and prices in some areas jumped as much as 11 cents in a day.

Nicole Guy, 36, a leasing agent in Atlanta, was at her fourth gas station Thursday morning, trying to find gas. The station ran out of gas early Wednesday and the manager wasn’t sure when deliveries would resume.

Guy said she wished she had gone out the night before to refuel.

“My sister paid $3.50 at the pump last night for her car,” she said. “I thought if I went looking today I’d find a better deal. I never paid that much at the pump.”

Even as the pipeline resumes pumping, it will take time to replenish stocks. Gasoline inventories in the Northeast likely will fall to five-year lows this week, said Richard Joswick, an analyst with S&P Global Platts.

HACKERS RESURFACE

As FBI cyber sleuths dug into an attack that paralyzed a large part of the U.S. energy infrastructure, the group believed to be responsible said it was publishing data from breaches at three other companies, including an Illinois technology firm.

Biden on Thursday said officials do not believe the Russian government was involved in this attack.

“But we do have strong reason to believe that the criminals who did the attack are living in Russia,” he said. “That’s where it came from.”

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday urged companies that are victims of cyberattacks not to pay a ransom.

Colonial has not publicly said how much money the hackers were seeking or whether it paid the ransom. Colonial has a type of insurance that typically covers ransom payments, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.

To stem fuel shortages, four states and federal regulators relaxed fuel driver restrictions to speed deliveries of fresh supplies.

The U.S. also issued a waiver to an undisclosed shipper allowing it to transport gasoline and diesel from the U.S. Gulf Coast to East Coast ports on foreign-flagged vessels. The U.S. restricts deliveries between domestic ports to U.S.-built and crewed vessels.

Gulf Coast refiners that move fuel to market on the Colonial Pipeline had cut processing as an alternative pipeline filled to capacity last weekend. Total SE trimmed gasoline production at its Port Arthur, Texas, refinery and Citgo Petroleum pared back at its Lake Charles, Louisiana, plant.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc on Thursday said it was seeking alternative supply points to tackle challenges from the incident.

Airlines were refueling planes at their destinations, instead of usual departure points. On Wednesday, Delta Air Lines Chief Executive Ed Bastian said more fuel would be available “hopefully by the end of the week and as long as those predictions come true, hopefully we’ll be OK.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly in New York; additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Fistfights over fuel in U.S. Southeast: pipeline outage Day 6

By Stephanie Kelly

(Reuters) – Fuel shortages worsened and tensions rose in the southeastern United States on Wednesday, as the shutdown of the largest U.S. fuel pipeline network entered its sixth day and Washington officials pledged new steps to alleviate supply issues.

Fistfights at gas stations were reported as tensions bubbled. One video showed an altercation between two customers at a station in North Carolina.

A ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline last week halted 2.5 million barrels per day of fuel shipments. The pipeline stretches 5,500 miles (8,850 km) from U.S. Gulf Coast oil refineries to consumers in Mid-Atlantic and Southeast states.

Nearly 60% of gas stations in metro Atlanta were without gasoline, tracking firm GasBuddy said. Its survey showed 65% of stations in North Carolina and 43% in Georgia and South Carolina without fuel. Virginia also reported high outages.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the administration is addressing the fuel shortages and helping restore Colonial operations, including moving gasoline to places that need it.

“Our top priority right now is getting the fuel to the communities that need it, and we will continue doing everything that we can to meet that goal in the coming days,” Buttigieg told reporters at the White House.

There was no word from Colonial on a resumption of full operations after the most disruptive cyberattack on U.S. energy infrastructure. Its top executive would decide by the end of Wednesday if it were possible to restart, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on Tuesday.

The supply crunch sparked panic buying in the U.S. Southeast, bringing long lines and high prices at gas stations ahead of the Memorial Day holiday weekend at the end of May, the traditional start of the peak summer driving season.

At a Citgo station in East Atlanta, Charles Williams, 66, an Atlanta-based musician, filled his wife’s Mini Cooper, after seeing people with large jerry cans loading up.

“I wouldn’t say I know they’re hoarding, but I don’t know if they’re helping,” he said. “If gas is getting sold out everywhere, yeah, it’s time to start to worry.”

Privately owned Colonial Pipeline opened portions of the line manually in Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey and the Carolinas. It also accepted 2 million barrels of fuel to begin efforts to “substantially” restore operations by week’s end, the company has said.

The average national gasoline price rose to above $3.00 a gallon, the highest since October 2014, the American Automobile Association said.

HOARDING CREATING MORE SHORTAGES

Fuel industry representatives urged consumers to stop panic buying. They noted the country has plenty of gasoline supplies and said hoarding is creating shortages in areas not served by the pipeline.

“Retailers right now have sold several days worth of inventory within a few hours,” said Rob Underwood, President of the Energy Marketers of America.

Four southeastern states – Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and Georgia – joined federal regulators in relaxing driver and fuel restrictions to speed deliveries of supplies. Georgia suspended sales tax on gasoline until Saturday.

The FBI has accused a shadowy criminal gang called DarkSide of the ransomware attack. The group, believed to be based in Russia or Eastern Europe, has not directly taken credit for the Colonial hack, but on Wednesday it claimed to have breached systems at three other companies, including an Illinois tech firm.

Russia’s embassy in the United States rejected speculation that Moscow was behind the attack. President Joe Biden on Monday said there was no evidence so far that Russia was responsible.

REFINERS, AIRLINES REACT

It is unknown how much money the hackers are seeking, and Colonial has not commented on whether it would pay.

Gulf Coast refiners that move fuel to market on the Colonial Pipeline have cut processing. Total SE trimmed gasoline production at its Port Arthur, Texas, refinery, and Citgo Petroleum pared back at its Lake Charles, Louisiana, plant.

Citgo said it was moving products from Lake Charles and “exploring alternate supply methods into other impacted markets.” Marathon Petroleum said it was “making adjustments.”

Several airlines have been transporting fuel by truck or fueling planes at destinations rather than at East Coast origins. American Airlines has made changes to two long-haul flights out of Charlotte, North Carolina – one of its hub airports – through Friday.

(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly in New York; Additional reporting by Laila Kearney in New York, Rich McKay in Atlanta, Tracy Rucinski in Chicago, and Timothy Gardner in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler, Steve Orlofsky and David Gregorio)