Contaminated gasoline at filling stations in parts of Florida continues to be an issue for drivers in the state after Hurricane Idalia’s landfall as a Category 3 storm.
Officials said that gas purchased after 10 a.m. on Saturday at stations supplied by Citgo from the Port of Tampa has a strong likelihood of being contaminated with diesel fuel. They cited human error as the reason behind the accidental mixing of fuels that has affected more than two dozen gas stations in the state.
"There couldn't be a worse time to have this contamination event as thousands of drivers try to flee the area, plus for those that filled up, the potential inability to have a functional vehicle to leave the area," Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy told FOX Business.
"It's quite rare to see the level of contamination that we saw Citgo announce with diesel in the gasoline, but these incidents have happened before on a smaller scale," he added. "It will be cleaned up and unlikely to repeat any time soon."
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Idalia, which has been downgraded to a Category 2 storm, has produced storm surges several feet high in some areas and brought damaging winds that reached up to 130 mph at one point, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Despite the storm, De Haan said there has been a low level of gas outages so far in Florida and virtually no impact on prices.
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"We probably won't see much change in price and will take another day or two once the storm clears Florida to potentially see outage numbers edge higher, but it seems the situation shouldn't get much worse," he said.
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Oil prices edged higher on Wednesday as investors eyed the effects of Idalia.
