Some Winnipeg gas stations out of fuel, days after Imperial Oil pipeline shutdown

Some gas stations in Winnipeg are starting to feel the pinch of fuel shortages, less than a week after Imperial Oil announced it was temporarily shutting down a pipeline carrying gas to the Manitoba capital and communities around it.

On Thursday morning, several locations across Winnipeg were completely out of fuel — including at least two on Pembina Highway, where orange pylons blocked the pumps at Domo and plastic bags covered the gas nozzles at 204 Fuels, with a sign explaining the location was out of gas for the day because of the pipeline shutdown.

Gas stations in north Winnipeg were also affected, including at Domo on McPhillips Street, where a sign told customers the location was out of regular gas, and at 204 Fuels on Salter Street, where signs simply read "out of gas." 

Another sign at the Salter station, presumably put up before the location ran out of fuel entirely, indicated it was limiting gas purchases to $30 per customer.

Imperial Oil announced on Sunday it had shut down a line that runs between Gretna, Man., near the U.S. border, and Winnipeg over the weekend after inspections raised concerns about a section of the pipe just south of St. Adolphe.

The line, which carries gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, will be out of service for approximately three months, the company said.

Some people CBC News spoke with in Winnipeg on Thursday were unaware of the shutdown, while others said the implications of losing a source of fuel were on their minds.

"It impacted anybody who gets in a car," said Tom Houghton, walking back to his vehicle after leaving a grocery store on Thursday. "It's what we've got to live with now."

Supply must be 'distributed equitably': Kinew

But not all gas stations are feeling the effects of the shutdown.

Craig Gilpin, chief executive officer of Red River Co-op, said he's confident its stations will continue to have enough fuel, because its supplier, Federated Cooperative Ltd., "has been actively working out a supply plan."

"That said, this is an evolving situation," Gilpin said in an email.

While there is more inventory on the way, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew on Thursday had words for distributors: be fair.

"What you're seeing right now is a result of market inefficiencies. And so that's why we've been telling the suppliers that they need to provide access to all of the distributors who then feed the gas stations," Kinew told reporters at a news conference.

"We need to ensure that there is a regular entry into the province of this 50,000 barrels a day that are coming in via train car and truck — but we also need to make sure that that supply is being distributed equitably across the different regions who need it, across the different sectors of the economy."

The number he gave is an increase from Monday, when Kinew said the province was planning on bringing in 12,000 barrels per day to fill the void caused by the shutdown.

The premier said his government has communicated that message of equity directly to oil and gas companies, and called in the federal Competition Bureau, "just to ensure that everyone in the oil and gas space is ensuring that these final products — gasoline, diesel, jet fuel — are going to be distributed across the province."

The province is keeping a close eye on the price of gas in Manitoba, Kinew said, and will "take further steps" to keep gas and other finished fuel products affordable if needed — but he wouldn't say what those steps might look like.

The Opposition Progressive Conservatives have urged Kinew to extend his NDP government's temporary suspension of the provincial gas tax, which is set to expire in a few months.

Details on costs 'proprietary information': Imperial

Exactly how much more it's costing to move fuel by truck and rail instead of pipeline would be "dependent on a number of factors," a spokesperson for Imperial Oil said in an email on Thursday, calling those details "proprietary information that we don't share publicly."

MLA Jamie Moses, Manitoba's minister for economic development and natural resources, said those are "exactly the conversations" the government is currently having with gas suppliers — including questions about who will foot the bill for those extra costs.

Moses said earlier this week that a recent uptick in the price of regular fuel in Winnipeg — which price-tracking website Gaz Wizard said had reached an average of 139.9 cents on Thursday, up from 133.9 days earlier — isn't related to the pipeline shutdown and subsequent gas shortages.

But Moses echoed the premier Thursday, saying the NDP government is keeping a close eye on the price of fuel — particularly in light of the province's temporary exemption of the 14 cents per litre gas tax.

"We continue to lean on and, quite frankly, push the suppliers to ensure that the affordability that we care about… is something that the suppliers can deliver on," he said.