*

Over 17% of Florida gasoline stations out of fuel

*

Outages to grow after Hurricane Milton landfall, analysts

say

*

Kinder Morgan ( KMI ) shuts Florida fuel pipelines, Tampa

terminals

*

Could be biggest storm-related disruption in Florida fuel

market

since 1992, analyst says

(Updates outages in bullets and paragraph 4, adds Buckeye

terminal shutdown in paragraph 11)

By Shariq Khan

NEW YORK, Oct 8 (Reuters) - A growing number of gas

stations were flashing empty signs on Tuesday as panic-buying

gripped Florida, where residents are bracing for a monster

hurricane to make landfall.

Hurricane Milton was downgraded to a Category 4 storm on

Tuesday as it grinded past Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula en route

to Florida's Gulf Coast where over 1 million people were ordered

to evacuate. Parts of Florida are still recovering from

Hurricane Helene, which battered the state at the end of

September.

The storm is expected to make landfall on Wednesday.

By 6:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, 7,912 gasoline stations in

Florida, about 17.4% of the total, had run out of fuel versus

almost no outages on Monday morning, according to data from fuel

markets tracker GasBuddy.

As people rush to get out of harm's way, demand for gasoline

has jumped, said Patrick De Haan, an analyst at GasBuddy.com.

"These numbers will continue to rise very fast," De Haan

said. Milton's path over Tampa Bay is spelling trouble for major

fuel distribution networks, he added.

Florida is the third-largest gasoline consumer in the United

States, but there are no refineries in the state, making it

dependent on waterborne imports. More than 17 million tons of

petroleum- and natural gas-related products move through Tampa

Bay in a typical year, according to the Energy Information

Administration.

Tampa and most other Florida ports were closed on Tuesday to

all vessel traffic, reports by the U.S. Coast Guard showed.

TERMINALS SHUT

Kinder Morgan ( KMI ) has shut its Central Florida Pipeline

system, which moves refined products between Tampa and Orlando,

the company said in an emailed statement. It has closed all fuel

delivery terminals in Tampa, but expects trucks to be able to

pick up fuel from Orlando wholesale racks until winds exceed 35

miles per hour.

Fuel trucks cannot safely deliver at wind speeds exceeding

that threshold, wholesale distributor Mansfield explained, and

said it expects wind conditions to bring all Florida fuel

deliveries to a near-halt by Wednesday.

Refiner CITGO Petroleum and infrastructure and logistics

provider Buckeye Partners are also shutting down their Tampa

terminals, the companies told Reuters.

Mansfield has moved all Florida markets to its "Code Red"

classification, requiring a 72-hour notice to make new

deliveries.

It is also requesting 48-hour notices for new deliveries in

southern Georgia.

Milton could potentially be the biggest disruptor to

Florida's gasoline supply since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, said

Tom Kloza, head of energy analysis at Oil Price Information

Service.

"I'd be hard pressed to come up with an area that could be

more prone to lingering problems should a Cat3 or greater storm

hit the infrastructure," Kloza said. "It's hard to anticipate

any tankers or barges coming in to Tampa Bay until Sunday or

Monday," he added.