Americans panic buying gas

America was recently hit with a gas shortage making Americans panic buying petrol. America's gas prices have sky rocketed during the last month and people are stocking up on gas, but why is this the case? When Joe Biden became president he cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline project which completed would deliver 380 thousand barrels of oil a day from Canada to Texas, this decision has left America with not enough gas, it also doesn't help that America was recently hit with a gas shortage by hackers called DarkSide who closed off a gas line owned by Colonial Pipeline in return for a ransom of £3.6 million or $6.6 million Australian dollars, it isn't uncommon for these companies to get ransoms, but they are rarely publicly announced and are usually paid off without any problems, this time however it wasn't paid off and they shut down the gas line causing prices to go up and new sites started reporting on what had happened. The gas line that was shut off supplied 45% of America's east coast with gas delivering 2.5 million barrels a day of diesel, petrol and jet fuel. Colonial Pipeline ended up paying $5.7 million dollars to the hackers.

Sources:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30103078

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57112371

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57050690

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51017852

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/may/19/colonial-pipeline-cyber-attack-ransom

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/12/darkside-hacker-group-behind-pipeline-attack-claims-three-new-victims.html

https://www.vox.com/22306919/biden-keystone-xl-trudeau-oil-pipeline-climate-change