Report with inputs from Ishaan Kaila and Amey Haldankar
Delhi, May 12: Let’s start by understanding how petrol reaches us.
Petrol comes from drilling oil wells. These oil wells give us crude oil. As the name suggests, crude oil is the completely natural form of oil. This crude oil is refined into petrol, gasoline (gas), diesel, and a lot of the fossil fuels we use today (including fuel for airplanes). This refining happens at refineries. The way these processed fuels such as petrol, diesel etc. reach us is through pipelines.
Each part of this chain is monitored and managed through complex computer systems. Let’s understand what happened to a company in USA and why it is important news.
Saturday, May 8th: Colonial Pipelines, a major company running 5,500 miles of pipeline on the eastern coast of US, announced that it had been hacked and threatened with ransomware (a type ). This pipeline carried refined products to end points. The pipeline was completely shut down. This is important because a major part of the economy still depends on fossil fuels. Imagine what would happen to trucks carrying vegetables to the market if suddenly, there was no diesel available?
Sunday, May 9th: The government stepped in to help. Colonial started a few parts of the pipeline.
Monday, May 10th: The FBI confirmed that the attack was done by a group of cybercriminals called DarkSide. DarkSide released a statement on their website stating that their goal was “to make money and not creating problems for society”. A state of regional emergency was declared by the White House. This emergency declaration allowed fuel to be transported by road for the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Fuel prices started steadily rising.
Tuesday and Wednesday, May 11th and 12th: The company and the American administration is working hard to restore operations. Drivers have displayed some panic buying. The government has requested citizens to not resort to panic buying and to remain calm.
Image from eia.gov, also available on Wikipedia