Valley may face gasoline shortage

Diana Sahagun

Friday, Jan. 19, 2001 | 11:17 a.m.

The Las Vegas Valley could be experiencing gasoline shortages as early as this weekend if California continues to cut electricity to the CalNev Pipeline, Southern Nevada's main supplier of gas and jet fuel.

California's rolling blackouts left the pipeline down for 18 hours Wednesday and 17.5 hours Thursday, said George Lowman, vice president of communications for CalNev Pipeline.

At 5 this morning, electricity to the pipeline was cut after the pipeline was able to pump for 6.5 hours through the night. As of 10:30 this morning, the pipeline was not yet operational. Lowman had no estimate for when electricity would be back on.

CalNev has two pipelines, an 18-inch line and a 14-inch line that must pump 24 hours a day to keep up with the demands of Las Vegas consumers who use more than 1 million gallons of gas a day, he said.

With the power gaps, Las Vegas only has a one- to two-day supply of gasoline heading into the weekend, Lowman said today from Chicago.

The 14-inch line is responsible for pumping gasoline from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, where the gas is taken by truck to a local storage facility. Storage tanks, which can hold a 36-hour supply of unleaded fuel, are already dry, Lowman said. Other grades are available, he said, but diesel is also in short supply. He estimated there is only two days of diesel fuel left.

The 18-inch line, which delivers 100,000 barrels of jet fuel a day -- 23,000 barrels to McCarran International Airport -- has had the same cuts in power and there is only a three-day supply left in reserves, he said.

Hilarie Grey, spokesman for McCarran, said the airport typically has six days worth of jet fuel in reserve on site. Since the first cut in electricity Monday, trucks began hauling in fuel from California and jets are carrying extra fuel in their tanks, she said.

Grey said the airport will be able to meet its demands for fuel.

"We're keeping an eye on it," she said. "We're concerned about it but it's not a crisis."

Nellis Air Force Base also gets its jet fuel through the pipeline but has enough fuel to last several weeks, base spokesman Richard Covington.

Southern California Edison, which supplies power to the CalNev Pipeline, is a power generator agreed to interrupt electrical service if California's utilities request rolling blackouts, spokesman Steve Cartwright said Thursday.

"Even a six-hour window would allow us to begin replenishing the inventory, but would not catch us up," Lowman said. "(Wednesday) we could only pump for 5 1/2 hours. The area of Las Vegas uses the product faster than that."

While the reserves are drying out, gas stations still have underground inventory, he said.

"But they are running down their inventory, and we can't fill up those stations," Lowman said. "The stations could be drained by the weekend."

Jack Greco, chairman of Nevada Gasoline Retailers Association, said well over 90 percent of the gas coming into the valley comes through the pipeline. If the pipeline isn't in operation and there is only a limited supply of gasoline, dealers might have to set higher prices at the pump, he said.

"It's fair to say we're in crisis mode, that all of Nevada is extremely dependent on the efficiency of the energy distribution facilities in California," Greco said. "The entire state is attached by two gas umbilical cords to California."

While he said an alternative is to truck in the gas, Greco said trucks making a 10-hour round trip to and from California can only carry 9,000 gallons per truck.

"It would be an astronomical task, and there are really not enough trucks to do it for an extended length of time," Greco said. "It will be nothing more than a Band-Aid."