Colonial Pipeline's Line 1, the largest U.S. gasoline pipeline running from Houston toward the East Coast, has halted operations after a third-party work crew damaged a section of the line in Georgia.

Bloomberg reported that the line stopped shipping fuel after the damage occurred on Tuesday in Paulding County, Georgia.

"Line 1 is out of service while our team coordinates response and repair efforts," Colonial said in a statement cited by the outlet.

The outage hits a critical fuel artery that carries about 1.5 million barrels per day of gasoline from Houston to North Carolina, supplying an East Coast market that remains heavily dependent on pipeline deliveries due to limited local refining capacity.

While the rest of Colonial's pipeline system remains operational, any prolonged shutdown risks further tightening fuel supplies at a time when the war in Iran has pushed the U.S. national average price for regular gasoline to the politically sensitive level of $4 per gallon.

Let's remind readers that the 380,000-barrel-per-day Port Arthur, Texas, Valero refinery experienced an explosion last week at its 47,000-bpd unit 243 diesel hydrotreater. The good news is that the refinery has since restarted operations. 

First a refinery, now a pipeline. One has to wonder whether these "industrial accidents" are early signs of sabotage, particularly at a time when energy infrastructure is being destroyed across Russia, Ukraine, and the Middle East.

Certainly lots of questions here.