Retail prices for gasoline surged to $2.46 a gallon Thursday, up 11 cents a gallon from last week, GasBuddy said. Vast swaths of the U.S. are heavily dependent on the 5,500-mile Colonial pipeline for gasoline and any interruption can cause prices to spike and send retailers scrambling for supplies. Last year, disruptions that shut the pipeline for several days at a time caused fuel prices to spike, and gas stations as far away as Atlanta ran out of fuel. In another sign U.S. consumers could see further gains in fuel prices, gasoline futures had their highest increase since March 2016 on Thursday. Colonial is not the only major fuel pipeline to shut down.

Source: Wall Street Journal August 31, 2017 18:00 UTC