'Gas hysteria' a distribution problem not a supply problem
"Listen this is a distribution problem, it is not a supply problem. We're simply waiting on the supply trucks to come and refill the storage tanks at your local gas station so that you can purchase gas this labor day weekend," said Marc Rylander, Communications Dir. for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Friday afternoon at a gas station in south Austin, Gwen Krummel walked her dog while her husband waited in line.
Krummel is travelling from Port Isabel. She had no idea this panic was happening here.
"Well I think it's kind of sad really in a way because we're dealing with what's going on in Houston with all the flooding and we don't need to have something that people are worried about for nothing," she said.
Governor Abbott reassured the public on Friday, there is plenty of gas in Texas. Abbott said refineries on the coast are coming back online and they're working with surrounding states.
"The pipeline of gasoline that had been going from Texas to Oklahoma has been reversed. And that is now sending gasoline from Oklahoma to Texas," Abbott said.
"Texas has 28 million people and when they all buy at one time you are going to experience you know, challenges," said Todd Staples, President of the Texas Oil and Gas Association.
Staples says the good news is people are working around the clock to get consumers the products they need but it's not like there won't be any disruption.
"I don't want people to think that there's not...I mean Hurricane Harvey took its toll. You have so much refining capacity along the entire Texas gulf coast that was all impacted, you have terminals that this product goes to, we have pipelines that moves it," Staples said.
Early Friday morning Fox 7 got some reports of gas going for more than $4 a gallon. Those prices were back down by the afternoon.
"We had several hundred complaints in the Attorney General's office yesterday mostly from Dallas/Fort Worth about people that were charging exuberant prices for gasoline. $4 quite frankly is on the lower end of what we heard. We heard some charging upwards of 7 to 8 dollars a gallon," Rylander said.
Rylander says if you see price gouging, take pictures, video, get the address -- and e-mail it to consumeremergency@oag.texas.gov
"Get in line if you need gasoline today. Get in line if you need gasoline to travel or to work for this weekend. Otherwise, hang tight, settle down and you're going to see things back to normal at the gas pump very soon," Rylander said.
A spokesperson for Murphy USA told Fox 7 this afternoon there was an error when posting their new gas price.
The price for gas in some Murphy gas stations around the Austin area went up to $4.61 today.
They say it was a mistake -- they realized it within an hour and got the price back down to about $2.35 which is average.
Murphy says about 300 people bought that expensive gas and they will be given gift cards to make up for it.