Jimmie Nelson’s diesel fuel delivery came just as the tanks that power his trucks were running low at the peak of the critical fall harvest.

The delivery to his farm south of Moorhead on Tuesday also came as he was running low on time – the harvest, recently delayed by rain, must be finished by the end of October or risk being buried by snow.

“It’s a race against the clock in the fall,” said Nelson, whose five trucks are running day and night to deliver his corn, sugar beet and soybean harvest.

Eighty percent of his crops and income for the year remain on the ground.

Nelson was just one of the farmers and others in North Dakota and Minnesota who were caught by a shortage of diesel fuel that has plagued the northern Plains and Upper Midwest.

The disruptions in supplies of diesel fuel flow from a combination of factors, experts said, including the planned and unplanned shutdown of several oil refineries in the region.

For example, a refinery near Billings, Mont., was shut down to install new equipment to enable the plant to distill ultra-low sulfur diesel, a recent federal environmental mandate. This summer, flooding shut down a Kansas refinery.

The diesel fuel that was delivered to Nelson’s tanks Tuesday afternoon arrived at the Cenex tank farm in West Fargo Monday afternoon, sent from a refinery near Billings.

The delivery of about 2 million gallons included almost 500,000 gallons of diesel to supply 13 stations in Fargo-Moorhead and Casselton – at least for awhile.

“We’re actually in good shape in this company,” said Kent Satrang, general manager of Petro Serve USA, which includes several Cenex stations. “But it only lasts for five days, then we need more product.”

The diesel shortage this summer and fall has been the worst Satrang has seen in 30 years.

“It’s a very complex issue,” he said of the factors that combined to create the shortage, a list that includes the new ultra low-sulfur diesel fuel, plant shutdowns and high consumer demand. “There’s a lot of people you can blame,” Satrang said, “including yourself.”

Eventually, a boost in renewable fuels should help to prevent future shortages. “In the meantime, we’re paying for a rubber band that is stretched extremely tight.”

Magellan Pipeline of Tulsa, Okla., whose pipelines carry most of the petroleum to the area, has a seven- to 10-day supply of diesel fuel for the Fargo area, a company spokesman said Tuesday.

“We see some additional product flowing into the system in mid- to late-October that will minimize or hopefully eliminate the short-term outages,” said Bruce Hein, Magellan’s director of government and media affairs.

Ryan Bernstein, legal counsel for North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven – who has urged refineries to direct more fuel to North Dakota and waived time restrictions for truckers delivering fuel – agreed the shortages should ease.

The Flint Hills refinery in the Twin Cities reportedly will reopen around the end of the month, with 50,000 barrels a day of expanded capacity.

“Hopefully, we’ll get over the hump with harvest,” he said.

Roger Johnson, North Dakota agriculture commissioner, said his office has received numerous calls from farmers, especially in the eastern part of the state, but added the calls have tapered off in recent days.

Farmers have been able to get fuel, but with varying degrees of difficulty. The shortage was for so-called clear diesel fuel for over-the-road trucks, as opposed to the red-dyed fuel for field machinery, Johnson said.

“I don’t know of anyone who was stopped in their tracks for more than a couple of hours,” Johnson said. Recent rains, which kept farmers out of the field in many areas of the state, helped to alleviate the shortage temporarily, he said.

Nelson’s delivery came just as he was gearing up for the final harvest push, work he hopes to complete in the next two weeks. This harvest has been especially nerve-racking because of the fuel shortage, which he called “very, very serious.”

“My whole income is these last two weeks,” Nelson added. “I have to go.”

Readers can reach Forum reporter Patrick Springer at (701) 241-5522