Gasoline costing $3 a gallon or more popped up at a few stations Tuesday across metro Detroit as Hurricane Katrina threatened to hamper incoming supplies.
Downed refineries and damaged pipelines in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama could mean it will take weeks to get petroleum flowing again from there.
The area is a crucial transmission point for the nation's petroleum and a major site of the refining that turns oil into gas.
While there were lines of two or three cars waiting to fill up at some stations Tuesday, officials at AAA Michigan don't want consumers to panic.
"There may be spot shortages here and there, but it's a temporary issue until we see what happens with refinery production," said Jim Rink, a spokesman for AAA Michigan.
"To preserve inventories, some producers are slowing down production so they don't run out of inventory," he said.
"Consumers shouldn't panic, because if they do they will create a full-blown shortage and then no one will have any gas. We want to avoid a situation where a short-term problem turns into a more severe one."
Detroit-area pump prices rose, though. Typical of many, a Speedway station at 14 Mile and Crooks in Royal Oak that charged $2.79 Tuesday morning raised the price per gallon to $2.99 in the afternoon.
A BP station on Plymouth and Green in Ann Arbor charged $3.05 for regular Tuesday evening. A Clark station on Rochester Road in Troy charged $3.09.
Michigan gets about a third of its petroleum from facilities in Texas and Louisiana. Other regions depend on those sources, too, so some Michigan-bound supplies could be diverted.
"The fact that the pipelines aren't in operation down there is going to be a problem for us, because we get product from there," said John Griffin, executive director of the Associated Petroleum Industries of Michigan in Lansing.
"We need those refineries to keep producing gasoline and crude. We import about 30% from that area, and those tanks are being drawn down fast."
Fear of how high the price of gas could get by the holiday weekend sent some drivers to stations early Tuesday.
"Man, the price is going to get to $3 easy," said Marsell Carter, a 60-year-old home appraiser who gassed up his 1994 Toyota Corolla on Tuesday for $2.69 a gallon at the Speedway station at East Jefferson and I-375 in Detroit.
As he filled up, a station employee changed the price to $2.85. "I might have to start catching the bus," Carter said.
Tiffany Watson, a mail handler from Eastpointe, said she's going to start riding her Suzuki R-1 motorcycle to work.
"They are just too high for me," she said, as she spent $35 to fill up her 1996 Ford Contour at the Marathon station on Fort and Trumbull in Detroit.
Some stations have been told they won't get new shipments of gasoline soon.
During a supply crunch, gasoline wholesalers are allowed to limit the number of stations they supply to.
Mike Safidine, manager of the BP station on Greenfield and the Lodge Freeway in Detroit, said he had only about 4,700 gallons left in his underground tanks.
Normally, the tanks have between 7,000 and 8,000 gallons.
Safidine, who charged $2.79 at 4 p.m. Tuesday, plans on increasing prices to around $2.89.
"Right now we are real low and my supplier said he wouldn't be able to supply me" Tuesday, he said. "I will run out tomorrow. It's all because the refineries down south are shut down."
On Tuesday, Gov. Jennifer Granholm asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to lift the requirement for use of reformulated gasoline - a special blend used during the summer months in southeastern Michigan - for the next seven days.
Use of the reformulated gasoline is required through the end of September.
But a waiver would allow Michigan to use other forms of gasoline from other parts of the country, boosting supplies.
October delivery of crude oil futures jumped $2.61 to settle at $69.81 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Contact ALEJANDRO BODIPO-MEMBA at 313-222-5008 or bodipo@freepress.com.
BY ALEJANDRO BODIPO-MEMBA FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER
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