Biden warns gas companies not to price-gouge drivers as Colonial Pipeline comes back on stream

‘Do not try to take advantage of consumers during this time,’ Mr Biden says to gas companies

President Joe Biden has warned gas companies against taking advantage of Americans amid fuel shortages, as Colonial Pipeline restores its operational services following a six-day shutdown.

“Do not ... Do not try to take advantage of consumers during this time,” Mr Biden said on Thursday to gas companies. “Nobody should be using this situation for financial gain. That’s what the hackers were trying to do. That’s what they are. Not us. That’s not who we are.”

Reports of price gouging have circulated in states most impacted by the closure of the 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline. The pipeline runs from Texas to New Jersey, transporting more than 100 million gallons of fuel per day along the US Southeast.

Mr Biden encouraged residents who experienced any price gouging at the pump to report the station to state and federal agencies.

This comes as Colonial Pipeline announced that it safely restarted its pipeline system on Wednesday evening after shutting it down on Friday. But it would likely take several days before it would return to its normal operations.

“Fuel is beginning to flow to a majority of the markets that they service and they should be reaching full operational capacity as we speak,” Mr Biden said.

“We want to be clear, we will not feel the effects at the pump immediately. This is not like flipping on a light switch,” he added. “Do not get more gas than you need … panic buying will only slow the process.”

DarkSide, a Russian-based hacker group, was responsible for the ransomware attack, the FBI confirmed on Monday.

Mr Biden said there was no indication that the Russian government was involved in the attack, based on the FBI’s assessment, but he has put pressure on the country to address the ransomware attack.

“We do not believe the Russian government was involved in this attack, but we do have strong reason to believe that the criminals who did the attack were living in Russia, that’s where it came from,” the president said, adding that his administration has been in contact with Moscow “about the imperative for responsible countries to take decisive action against these ransomware networks.”

DarkSide was among several criminal gangs responsible for costing Western nations tens of billions of dollars in the last three years.

The group claims to only target large corporations that are not related to medical, educational, or government entities. A portion of the money earned by the group during these ransomware attacks are then donated to charities, DarkSide claims.

Typically a ransomware attack involves hackers locking up computer systems by encrypting data and paralysing networks before asking for a large ransom from the targeted company to unscramble it.

Initial reports indicated that the Georgia-based company had no intention to pay the extortion fee while it attempted to restore full service to its operating system. But multiple sources told Bloomberg that Colonial Pipeline paid a $5 million ransom in untraceable cryptocurrency on Friday.

When asked about this report, Mr Biden replied: “No comment.”