GREEN BAY: The Port of Green Bay’s sole petroleum distributor has reversed course in order to help ease a void created by a pipeline shutdown. Port Director Dean Haen said Kimberly-based U.S. Venture Inc. has started to import gasoline, diesel and other petroleum products into the region in the wake of the March shutdown of the gas pipeline between Milwaukee and Green Bay.
Illinois-based West Shore Pipe Line Co. has said the pipeline is closed indefinitely as the company considers whether to rebuild it. “Normally, they (U.S. Venture) export petroleum products to Canada or the East Coast because it’s cheaper here than there,” Haen said. “Now, they’re shipping it here because our fuel costs are higher. The whole market has flipped.”
West Shore Pipe Line said it continues to study how to supply the Green Bay area with gasoline and diesel in the interim. Gov. Scott Walker declared a state of emergency on May 6, waiving state and federal limits on the number of hours fuel drivers can drive each week, to help alleviate potential gasoline and diesel shortages.
Port tonnage figures for May show 5,135 metric tons of petroleum products arrived in Green Bay. Total petroleum product imports for all of 2015 totalled 8,466 metric tons. Haen said the pipeline’s problems will give the port tonnage figures for this year a boost at a time when total tonnage for all commodities has declined nearly 20 percent. “Over the course of the year, we’ll move more product through the port,” he said.
Each shipment of petroleum products into the port delivers 35,000 to 100,000 barrels to the Green Bay area and Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The deliveries come at a time when the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline has stayed near $2.50 in Green Bay, while average prices across the state have declined from their early June peaks.
U.S. Venture officials were not available for comment Thursday. Green Bay relied on shipping and port traffic for its fuel until 1960 when the first pipeline from Milwaukee came online. But Haen said it’s unlikely that other petroleum shippers would invest in new port facilities.
“The future of that pipeline needs to be determined. If it’s not going to be operated, then someone might evaluate installing another pipeline. If (another pipeline’s) not feasible, then I think you’d see other people evaluate other transportation efforts,” Haen said. “That infrastructure takes time to design, engineer, permit and construct. It all takes time.”
