Shippers loaded 12 foreign-flagged tankers with gasoline, diesel and other fuels to help relieve the storm-struck U.S. Northeast under a rare waiver of U.S. marine law, the government said on Thursday.
The cargoes, which must be delivered by Nov. 20 under the waiver of the 1920 Jones Act, were slated to be discharged at ports from Maryland to Maine after Superstorm Sandy.
The shipments totaled 3.18 million barrels of fuel and blending products, said the Maritime Administration, or MARAD, a branch of the Department of Transportation. They included more than 1.75 million barrels of gasoline and more than 1.1 million barrels of diesel and other distillates, it said.
MARAD said this was the final count of ships that used the waiver. The agency did not reveal the companies that shipped the fuel.