*

Colonial crews still searching for source of suspected

gasoline

leak in Georgia

*

Colonial outage duration on par with shutdown caused by

2021

cyberattack

*

Impact on gasoline prices limited by high stockpiles,

refinery

output

(Updates with details on outage in paragraph 2, analyst comment

in paragraphs 8-10)

By Shariq Khan

NEW YORK, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Colonial Pipeline's main

U.S. gasoline artery is expected to be shut through Friday as

the company continues to search for the source of a suspected

leak in Paulding County, Georgia, the company said in a

statement on Wednesday.

Line 1, one of two mainlines on the more than 5,500-mile

Colonial system, was shut on Monday night after Colonial

received reports of a gasoline release and began investigating.

The pipeline moves gasoline from Texas to North Carolina and was

earlier expected to resume service on Tuesday night, according

to market sources.

"Colonial continues on-site work to identify the source of

the suspected release on our gasoline pipeline," a Colonial

spokesperson said on Wednesday. "At this time, we estimate that

Line 1 will remain down through Friday," they added.

That timeline puts the outage on par with a high-profile

2021 cyberattack that forced the entire Colonial network to shut

down. During that attack, the company's mainlines were out for

about a week, leaving gas stations empty and lifting fuel prices

in multiple cities along the East Coast.

Shippers will be informed if there are any changes to

the timeline for Line 1's restart, the Colonial spokesperson

said, adding that the company is working with its customers to

provide limited gasoline deliveries on other parts of its

pipeline network.

Line 1 delivers 1.5 million barrels of gasoline each day

from Houston, Texas, to storage tanks in Greensboro, North

Carolina, from where the motor fuel is distributed locally or

shipped to other markets all the way up to the New York Harbor.

It is almost always chock-full of gasoline, supplying

about half of the East Coast's daily demand for the motor fuel,

making it one of the most crucial parts of the domestic U.S.

gasoline supply chain.

As of now, the ongoing outage is not expected to cause a

large jump in retail gasoline prices because of high fuel

production and inventories in the country, GasBuddy analyst

Patrick De Haan said.

Retail gasoline prices in Atlanta, Georgia, remain

steady despite the outage, De Haan said. However, panic buying

from consumers could create challenges, he warned.

"If consumers freak out and panic, even against the pool of

gasoline that's rising, there is always a possibility - pipeline

disruption or not - that stations could run low on inventory,"

he said.

As of Jan. 10, the U.S. East Coast had 63.4 million barrels

of gasoline in storage, equating to more than 20 days of supply,

according to Reuters calculations based on government data.