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2021-05-08 Home Front: WoT

Top U.S. pipeline operator shuts major fuel line after cyber attack

[Finance.yahoo] Top U.S. fuel pipeline operator Colonial Pipeline has shut its entire network after a cyber attack, the company said in a statement on Friday.

Colonial's network supplies fuel from U.S refiners on the Gulf Coast to the populous eastern and southern United States. The company transports 2.5 million barrels per day of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other refined products through 5,500 miles (8,850 km) of pipelines.

Colonial Pipeline says it transports 45% of East Coast fuel supply.

The company learned of the attack on Friday and took systems offline to contain the threat, it said in the statement. That action has temporarily halted operations and affected some of its IT systems, it said.

The company has engaged a third-party cybersecurity firm to launch an investigation, and Colonial has contacted law enforcement and other federal agencies, it said.

Colonial did not give further details or say for how long its pipelines would be shut.

Reuters reported earlier on Friday that Colonial had shut its main gasoline and distillate lines.

During the trading session on Friday, Gulf Coast cash prices for gasoline and diesel edged lower.

Both gasoline and diesel futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose more than crude prices during the day. Gasoline futures gained 0.6% to settle at $2.1269 a gallon, while diesel futures rose 1.1% to settle at $2.0106 a gallon.

Longer-term price effects will depend on the amount of time that the lines are shut. If barrels are not able to make it onto the lines, Gulf Coast prices could weaken further, while prices in New York Harbor could rise, one market participant said.

Colonial significantly shut down its gasoline and distillate lines during Hurricane Harvey, which hit the Gulf Coast in 2017.

During that time, spot Gulf Coast gasoline prices rose to a five-year high, while diesel prices rose to around a four-year high.

Posted by Skidmark 2021-05-08 08:54|| || Front Page|| [20 views ] Top

#1 Cyberattack forces closure of largest US refined-fuel pipeline

Posted by Skidmark 2021-05-08 10:07|| 2021-05-08 10:07|| Front Page Top

#2 Too bad the FBI and CIA Brown Shirts are too busy being the Democratic Party's Brown Shirts against Dem political opponents to do their real jobs.

Posted by Ebbomoger Speaking for Boskone4589 2021-05-08 10:38|| 2021-05-08 10:38|| Front Page Top

#3 Considering current energy policy...

Posted by swksvolFF 2021-05-08 11:10|| 2021-05-08 11:10|| Front Page Top

#4 Still uninformed as to how / why / where an oil pipeline can be affected by a cyber attack.
In a related vein, a story popped up on the internet where some kind of a think tank speculated that a days-long regional shutdown of the US electric grid during a major heatwave could lead to 1000s of heat-related deaths among the populace. Something very like that happened in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
I'm sure we have our "top men" working on scenarios like these. NOT.

Posted by Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 2021-05-08 14:36|| 2021-05-08 14:36|| Front Page Top

#5 /\ Still uninformed as to how / why / where an oil pipeline can be affected by a cyber attack.

Oil tank farms and pumping stations are, for the most part, now computerized.

Posted by Besoeker 2021-05-08 14:40|| 2021-05-08 14:40|| Front Page Top

#6 Oil tank farms and pumping stations are, for the most part, now computerized I get that part of it. My lawn mower is computerized now. But it has zero connection to the internet or any other network.

Posted by Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 2021-05-08 14:47|| 2021-05-08 14:47|| Front Page Top

#7 Ref #5: Apologies, I should have also added these facilities are generally operated remotely.

Posted by Besoeker 2021-05-08 14:57|| 2021-05-08 14:57|| Front Page Top

#8 Are there any "Made in China" computer chips in any of the components?

Posted by Ebbomoger Speaking for Boskone4589 2021-05-08 15:13|| 2021-05-08 15:13|| Front Page Top

#9 Notice they don't blame al-Qaeda for anything anymore.

Posted by Clem 2021-05-08 15:21|| 2021-05-08 15:21|| Front Page Top

#10 The word for today is: SCADA - Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition is the use of hardare/software systems to remotely monitor and operate industrial facilities. Like pipelines.

Once upon a time, when the world was new and you could get VC funding just by appending "on the Internet" to your business plan, I applied for a job with a pipeline company looking to put their SCADA systems on the Internet. At the time, on-line access seemed bold and a bit dangerous. I'm sure they have the bugs out of it by now...

Posted by SteveS 2021-05-08 15:21|| 2021-05-08 15:21|| Front Page Top

#11 ^Are there any that are not?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2021-05-08 15:21|| 2021-05-08 15:21|| Front Page Top

#12 Oil tank farms and pumping stations are, for the most part, now computerized

The Industrial Internet. Each piece is connected to the internet and continually sends telemetry information. Running Speed, Temperature, RPM, Flow, pressures, etc... It enables centralised deep monitoring of the equipment to prevent outages. Machine Learning app notices that a certain piece of equipment fails soon after it starts running over a certain RPM - or this other connected item runs a certain way. It can make changes (reduce flow for example) or schedule preventive maintenance _before_ the item fails and causes other problems.

I'm sure a pipeline has hundreds, if not thousands of valves, gages, and such to manage the flow of the oil. Managing it all is probably very complicated.

Posted by CrazyFool 2021-05-08 16:01|| 2021-05-08 16:01|| Front Page Top

#13
The soposited hackers are claimed to have affected the pipeline juntion point located in the area near I20 SC EXIT 4. There It runs North & South for East coast users. Gas on metro Atlanta area is up 60cents a gallon and about 15 cents cents middle Sc/Ga area.

Btw this is same pipeline that broke about 6+ years back and gas got hard to get for 2 weeks.

Posted by NN2N1 2021-05-08 18:51|| 2021-05-08 18:51|| Front Page Top

11:43 Besoeker
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