Sandy: US government races to ease fuel shortages

Source: Guardian

Sandy: US government races to ease fuel shortages

Foreign tankers to be allowed into ports from Gulf of Mexico and military to open reserve supplies for emergency services

Staff and agencies in New York and Washington
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 3 November 2012 01.48 EDT

The US government is scrambling to ease fuel shortages paralysing the north-east in the wake of superstorm Sandy, saying the military will buy motor fuel and truck it there and allow foreign tankers from the Gulf of Mexico to deliver petroleum products.

The homeland security department has waived the Jones Act, a law that normally prohibits foreign-flagged vessels from shipping gasoline, diesel and other petroleum products from the Gulf of Mexico to north-eastern ports. The waiver, effective immediately, requires shipments to leave the Gulf region by 13 November and arrive in the north-east within a week.

With power still out at many ports and gasoline stations hit by Sandy, and as petroleum supplies were robust before the storm, it was unclear how much fuel was needed immediately and how quickly it could get to customers.

The US death toll hit 102 on Friday; Sandy had earlier killed 69 people as a hurricane the Caribbean, leaving poorer countries like Haiti struggling to cope. It struck the New Jersey coast on Monday as a rare hybrid superstorm after the hurricane merged with a powerful storm system in the north Atlantic. While power returned to much of Manhattan on Friday, residents of some of the hardest-hit areas still faced a long wait for electricity


Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/03/sandy-government-acts-fuel-shortages