I was working for a company that built gas stations in the early 1970’s. We had to change the pumps over because they wouldn’t register gas prices that were over $1.00. There were long lines at gas stations all over the country. The stations were running out of gas. We finished a station, called the distributer, and 24,000 gallons of gas was delivered in about 30 min.
I flew a little bit back then and noticed the floats were at the top of the crude oil storage tanks. They couldn’t be full of oil since there was an oil shortage. I guess they must have been full of air.
It all depends on the lift volume per stroke. some are steady and low volume, some are longer stroke (higher volume) and intermittent.
New wells might be flowing, nad not need a pump at all.
24,000 gallons of gas--about 8 semi-loads if iirc.
I don't mess around with the downstream end of the industry much, I am in exploration.
Either that was a very large facility with a lot of fuel islands, or the tanks were dry while you were putting the pumps in.
Not knowing what sort of arrangement the distributor had with the owner, whether the station was under new management, or what, I can't say one way or the other.
That fuel may have been paid for and waiting for y'all to finish installing the pumps. I don't know.
A gasoline shortage doesn't mean that crude storage tanks won't be full if the bottleneck in the supply chain is in the refining process.
So you could well have seen crude tanks full, and there still have been a gas shortage.