Gas stations run low on fuel

Gargi Chakrabarty, Rocky Mountain News

Published December 29, 2006 at midnight

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Denver drivers braved the snow Thursday and lined up at pumps to fill their tanks, even as some gas stations ran out of fuel.

Many people filled up during the day, anticipating fuel shortages in the wake of the second snowstorm in a week.

And gas stations - reeling from last week's blizzard, which disrupted tanker deliveries for nearly three days and drove down fuel stock - ran out of supply. Many stations reported sales were up 40 percent to 50 percent, prompting them to try to replenish their fuel supply twice during the day instead of getting the typical one delivery every two days.

"I heard we won't have gas for three to four days," said Jamie Ramirez, 39, as he filled up at the Shell gas station at the corner of East Colfax Avenue and Mariposa Street. The station was selling regular unleaded at $2.11 a gallon.

A housekeeper at the Colorado Convention Center, Ramirez said many of his co-workers also were filling up because of supply fears.

A Shell station at 595 Summit Blvd. in Broomfield ran out of premium gas by midafternoon, and a Texaco station at 425 U.S. 287 didn't have regular unleaded gas. Others were running low.

Some Phillips 66 stations ran out of regular unleaded during the day, but they sold midgrade and premium at the same price to cover the shortage. Suncor Energy (USA) owns the 45 Phillips 66 gas stations in Colorado as well as the state's only two refineries in Commerce City.

The refineries have a combined capacity of more than 90,000 barrels a day, of which 45 percent is gasoline and 30 percent diesel. The rest is heavier byproduct such as asphalt.

Suncor supplies 35 percent to 40 percent of Colorado's gasoline and diesel market.

"Our plan was to try and have every (gas station) full to the brim by this evening because we anticipated tomorrow it would be difficult to deliver to the gas stations," Steve Douglas, Suncor's general manager of marketing, said Thursday. "What we didn't anticipate was that so many people would decide to have a full tank before the snowstorm."

Douglas said the refineries were fully stocked with fuel supply, as were the terminals across the metro area. As a result, pump prices in the Denver area remained flat Thursday at about $2.14 a gallon - one of the lowest prices in the nation.

The average price of unleaded regular in Colorado was $2.207, according to AAA Colorado. The nationwide average was $2.333.

"This is not a crisis. There is plenty of gasoline," Douglas said. "We are trying to get it out to the stations before roads get really, really bad."

Roy Turner of the Colorado Wyoming Petroleum Marketers Association, which represents half the states' gasoline dealers, said he doesn't expect the supply crunch to get worse.

"I think fuel consumption will be way down the next couple of days," Turner said. "As long as there's no panic buying, we will be all right."

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