No Fuel Shortage Seen in Vegas After Pipeline Blast

Memorial Day weekend visitors to Las Vegas may face higher gasoline prices as a result of Thursday’s tragic pipeline explosion in San Bernardino, but no shortage of fuel is expected in the gambling mecca.

Oil companies that normally use the closed-off pipeline to supply Las Vegas with 90% of its gasoline and diesel fuel are trucking fuel into the city to replenish reserves as they are used, according to industry spokesmen.

“We’re hopeful that we can . . . meet the needs of our customers,” said Albert Greenstein, media relations manager for Arco. “We have every reason to believe that we can.”

But Greenfield added that trucking gasoline to Las Vegas costs about 5 cents per gallon more than sending it by pipeline and some of that cost may be passed along to motorists.

“There is probably every reason to think there will be some increase in price to cover some of the cost in delivery,” he said.

Spokesmen for Texaco and Chevron, two other major suppliers of gasoline to Las Vegas, agreed that supplies would be adequate but did not see a price increase as inevitable.

More than 100,000 visitors are expected in the city for the three-day weekend and most of them will be driving, according to Rob Powers, spokesman for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

No gas shortages, service station lines or price increases were reported by Friday evening.

San Bernardino officials in the meantime are seeking a court order to permanently close the gasoline line that runs through that city. Calnev Pipeline Co., operator of the system, has agreed to keep the flow of gasoline turned off until at least Tuesday, when a court hearing for a temporary restraining order sought by the city is held.

Federal investigators are looking into the cause of the fiery rupture Thursday that engulfed homes, killing at least three people and injuring 31 others in a housing tract that less than two weeks earlier was the site of a devastating train wreck.