An Arizona fuel pipeline operated by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners failed one of two tests to determine if it was repaired sufficiently following a rupture last month, company officials said Wednesday.
The closure of the pipeline, which provides about a third of the Valley's gasoline, has sparked days of shortages and long lines at gas stations.
The pipeline is still expected to be running back at full capacity by the weekend, Kinder Morgan spokesman Rick Rainey said.
Houston-based Kinder Morgan Energy Partners said a test on the first segment of the pipeline was going well and should be completed Wednesday afternoon but a test on a second 4-mile segment near Tucson failed. The failed section was near an area where the pipeline burst on July 30, forcing its closure for safety reasons on Aug. 8, Rainey said.
The section that failed during testing was being repaired, and a new test will needed, company officials said. The pipeline can ship 60,000 barrels of fuel a day.
The federal Office of Pipeline Safety, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, approved tests on the 120-mile pipeline earlier this week and also must authorize a restart.
The pipeline, which ships gasoline, diesel and jet fuel produced in Texas, ruptured July 30, spilling an undetermined amount of gasoline in Tucson. The 8-inch diameter line operated at half-capacity from Aug. 1 to Aug. 8 before being shut completely after test results identified the cause of the rupture as "stress corrosion cracking."
Gov. Janet Napolitano had said earlier that if the pipeline tests were successful, gas could be more readily available as early as this weekend.
Valley drivers had received a double dose of good news on Tuesday: Tests were beginning on the cracked pipeline, and a clean-air regulation had been temporarily lifted to allow more gas into the area.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency temporarily lifted regulations requiring the Valley to use clean-burning gasoline during the summer. That will allow fuel from more areas to come into the Valley.
"Arizona drivers deserve to get gas when they go to gas stations," Napolitano said Tuesday. "That's not an unreasonable expectation."
No one is willing to say when the Valley's gasoline market will return to normal, but the predictions of a one- to two-month siege had been revised to a week or two, if gas begins flowing through the pipeline this weekend..
Still, Valley drivers face more days of the higher prices and uncertain supplies that continued to vex them on Wednesday, though there were scattered reports that stations with gas supplies had shorter lines than had been experienced since the shortage hit Sunday.
Rosemarie Stryjewski, 30, of Phoenix, typically drives a Jeep four-wheel-drive vehicle but said she has resorted to using her mother's Grand Am to squeeze out better mileage. She said she paid a high price for gas Tuesday because she had no choice.
"I have to have gas for my job," she said. "I drive all day. I didn't mind paying $3.79 a gallon because I was able to pull right in. You gotta do what you gotta do, and now I'm good to go."
The companies that deliver and sell gas have been scrambling to secure supplies since the pipeline that runs from El Paso to Phoenix broke northwest of Tucson at the end of July.
They've brought in extra trucks and drivers to truck in gas from Tucson and El Paso. But if Tuesday night's pipeline test proves successful and federal pipeline regulators sign off on the results, those drivers can begin loading again in Phoenix.
That would eliminate the long drives to distant terminals and the often-longer waits as the trucks stack up to take on their loads. And the suspension of the clean-burning fuel requirement will open up new supply points, further easing the pressure.
The EPA granted the 30-day waiver Tuesday afternoon. It relaxed fuel regulations and let truckers deliver gas from California and New Mexico as well as in-state gas that is normally taken to rural areas.
Few refineries make the so-called Phoenix Blend gasoline that stations in the Phoenix area are required to sell, which severely limits their ability to find additional supplies to offset the current shortfall.
The "Phoenix Blend" includes methyl-tertiary-butyl ether, a chemical compound that contains oxygen to help gas burn more cleanly. For about a decade, adding MTBE to gas has been part of the strategy to reduce air pollution in many parts of the country.
In the Valley, it's part of the summer gas blend to reduce ozone. Arizona wants to get rid of MTBE in gasoline, just as California is doing. Arizona asked for approval from the EPA in March 2001 but still hasn't received an answer.
Lori Faeth, an environmental policy adviser to Napolitano, said the 30 days of relaxed standards won't hurt the Valley's ozone levels.
"Air quality is something that we are always monitoring closely," Faeth said. "There is still a good supply of clean-burning gas in our system.
"We have increased demand. We are consuming more than we usually do. We are glad this request has moved along quickly."
Napolitano said the addition of conventional gas will let truckers pick up fuel at more tank farms so they can make more deliveries every day. The Governor's Office and the gas industry are aggressively recruiting trucks and truckers in New Mexico, California and Nevada to deliver more gas.
Napolitano also is pushing the U.S. Department of Transportation to waive regulations regarding the number of hours a truck driver can work in a weekly shift. She wants truckers to be able to work 80 hours a week, up from 70 hours.
There are no gasoline refineries in Arizona, so fuel must be delivered through two pipelines operated by Kinder Morgan: the closed one that runs from Texas and a second from California, which is still operational.
Kinder Morgan said that ramping up supply from its California pipeline and increased truck deliveries had the Phoenix area receiving about 92 percent of its usual supply Tuesday.
But many Valley drivers did not heed warnings not to top off their tanks and pounced on every new tanker delivery, making it difficult for gas stations to make any headway returning to normal supply levels.
"There's probably more gas in this town in gas tanks than in the tank farm because of people topping off," said Leland Gould, executive vice president of Giant Industries, owner of wholesaler Phoenix Fuel. "Once the public believes that the (pipe)line is running to capacity, that's when they'll calm down. Honestly, it's all predicated on the public's reaction."
By Friday, Napolitano wants to have 60 percent of all state employees in Maricopa County either carpooling, taking mass transit, telecommuting, walking or biking to work. She has instructed Maricopa County and municipal offices to do the same. The governor met with business leaders to ask their employees to make the same travel reduction efforts.
Thomas Bannigan, president of Kinder Morgan's products pipeline operations, estimated that the company will spend as much as $500,000 to repair the line. He said the company had plenty of extra pipe that already had been tested in case more cracks turned up Tuesday night.
"Knock on wood, if we get a certified pressure test, we're going to turn on the pumps (this) morning," he said.
Reporters for The Arizona Republic, the Associated Press and Bloomberg News contributed to this report.
