U.S. declares northeast energy emergency as frigid weather hits

The U.S. Department of Transportation declared a regional emergency as cold weather and a November electrical outage at a Pennsylvania industrial complex disrupt heating-fuel markets.

The regional emergency declared on Dec. 12 waives hours-of-service regulations for trucks transporting heating fuels to New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania. The governors of New Jersey and Pennsylvania already had waived state-level trucking restrictions.

The federal declaration will remain in effect until the end of the emergency or midnight Dec. 26.

The issue stems from a Nov. 19 electrical incident in a transformer at Energy Transfer LP’s Marcus Hook terminal in Pennsylvania. The outage disabled the facilities propane truck-loading rack for three days and led the company to declare force majeure, according to a statement from the National Propane Gas Association. Energy Transfer customers were placed on allocation and are receiving 70% of their loads, the association said.

The terminal is loading propane onto trucks directly from a pipeline, causing wait times to increase.

Energy Transfer didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.