A Delaware judge ruled against the operator of the Port of Wilmington on Tuesday in a lawsuit stemming from when the port two years ago blocked Wawa tanker trucks from driving through its property to an adjacent fuel storage terminal.
Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster said port operator GT USA Wilmington can’t block access to storage tanks owned by Buckeye Partners, which hold fuel offloaded from ships on the Delaware River that is distributed to gas stations across the region. Laster also ruled that GT can’t charge Buckeye terminal usage fees.
Wawa fuel storage payments account for 85% of Buckeye’s business at the port. Buckeye said the April 2020 blockade disrupted fuel supplies to more than 200 gas stations in Delaware and four other states.
GT is a subsidiary of Emerati-based Gulftainer, the port management company that signed a 50-year lease to operate the Port of Wilmington in 2018. That year, and in 2020, GT issued tariffs that imposed terminal usage fees on companies that offload cargo from ships at the port, the practice of stevedoring.
BACKGROUND: Wawa gas blockade sparks a bitter fight between a Delaware port and fuel storage company
Buckeye and the terminal’s previous owner refused to pay the fees, which had amounted to more than $1 million when Buckeye took ownership in March 2020. The company argued it is not a stevedore and that the rent it pays covers the activities involved in running the terminal business.
Soon after Buckeye took control, GT barred the Wawa fuel trucks from driving through its property to get to the tanks.
In response, Buckeye filed an emergency request to intervene to the Delaware Chancery Court stating in documents that GT Wilmington USA had “pointed a proverbial gun” at it during the height of a pandemic and just two weeks after it took control of the fuel storage terminal.
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Laster lifted the bar on the tanker trucks the same day and enjoined GT from blocking Buckeye’s access as litigation proceeded over the past two years.
Laster on Tuesday ruled that Buckeye’s activity, by which ships pump gasoline or diesel through a pipeline to storage tanks where tanker trucks then retrieve it, did not meet GT’s “ambiguous” definition of stevedoring making the additional fees unwarranted.
The judge said Buckeye proved its lease included an “implied contractual right” to use the disputed roads to access the fuel storage terminal.
Contact Brandon Holveck at bholveck@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter @holveck_brandon.
