On Monday, the BP’s Olympic Pipeline was shut down for scheduled maintenance. The pipeline transports diesel fuel from numerous refineries in Blaine, Washington down to Portland, Oregon. Maintenance was supposed to begin in February, but was delayed until April. BP expects the pipeline to resume operations on April 15.

By Tuesday, local diesel supply began to tighten as suppliers began cutting off allocations to preserve contracted volume. Rack prices in Seattle and Portland have begun rising. Basis, or the difference between local OPIS average prices and NYMEX prices, has risen 5-6 cents in each market. Supply on the east side of Washington is fed by the Yellowstone Pipeline, which has not been affected by the Olympic outage.

Mansfield’s supply team is monitoring the situation and will provide an update if there are changes related to this outage.

Source: OPIS, NYMEX