North Dakota remains optimistic about Labor Day fuel availability

North Dakota industry leaders are hoping tankers like these will start showing up in time for Labor Day fuel supplies. (The Trucker File Photo)

By By BLAKE NICHOLSON
The Associated Press

8/28/2008

Terminals have run out of fuel in West Fargo and Grand Forks in North Dakota; Alexandria, Minn.; and Sioux Falls, S.D.

Officials are trying to figure out why.

"That's the million-dollar question," said Dawna Leitzke, executive director of the South Dakota Petroleum and Propane Marketers Association.

Dozens of tanker trucks lined up in West Fargo on Wednesday, after a new batch of fuel was delivered.

Burl Ingebretsen, a truck driver for Matson Oil Co. of Moorhead, Minn., said he waited in line in West Fargo for 10 hours. By the time it was his turn, Magellan posted a sign saying it was out of regular gas.

"We transport both gas and diesel, so I'm going to get diesel," Ingebretsen said. "I'm not going to wait here all day and come away empty-handed."

Ingebretsen said he had time to catch up on his reading. "I had been on vacation for a week, so I caught up on reading newspapers," he said.

Bruce Heine, a spokesman for Magellan Midstream Partners LP, which runs a network of pipelines and distribution terminals, said gas and diesel were being delivered to Sioux Falls, West Fargo and Alexandria, and diesel to Grand Forks. The terminal in Grand Forks was still without gas.

Heine said the pipeline is not to blame for any shortage.

"We don't own the (fuel) inventory in our system," he said. "If we don't have adequate supply to match up with demand, then we encounter some short-term outages."