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First Biodiesel Pipeline Starts Operations
By Kate Galbraith
Plantation Pipe Line Company The
first commercial shipment of biodiesel coursed through pipelines
operated by the Plantation Pipe Line Company, a joint venture of Kinder
Morgan Energy Partners and Exxon Mobil. Plantation's system of
pipelines is shown above. A commercial shipment of biodiesel has moved through a pipeline in the United States for the first time, according to Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, a pipeline company.
A 5 percent biodiesel blend moved from Mississippi to Georgia, and also from Mississippi to Virginia, via the Plantation Pipe Line Company, which is owned jointly by Kinder Morgan with a 51 percent stake, and Exxon Mobil with 49 percent. Last December, Kinder Morgan announced that the nation's first ethanol pipeline had begun service.
Biodiesel moves mainly by truck, said Paul Knott, the treasurer of the North Carolina Biodiesel Association, especially in the East. "There just isn't that huge infrastructure yet because the product's use is relatively small relative to how much gasoline is used," Mr. Knott said.
Besides the small market, another obstacle to pipeline movement is that biodiesel must avoid contact with jet fuel, which it can contaminate.
Jet fuel moves in many pipelines throughout the country, said Mark Evans, the director of business development for Kinder Morgan. In fact, pipelines typically move various fuel in "batches" — a batch of, say, regular diesel, might be followed by a batch of jet fuel.
The possibility of some biodiesel trickling back and mixing with jet fuel is "not acceptable to the airline and jet fuel customers we're familiar with," said Mr. Evans.
The biodiesel movements announced today make use of a pipeline that also transfers gasoline and low-sulfur diesel, but not jet fuel.
The company also says it will be able to move a 5 percent biodiesel blend to Birmingham and Oxford, Ala.; Atlanta and Bremen, Ga.; Belton and Spartanburg, S.C.; and Charlotte and Greensboro, N.C.
The Southeast is not known as a major market for biodiesel, which even in other parts of the country is a relatively small and struggling fuel product.
However, Mr. Evans said that the opening of the pipeline anticipated the enforcement of a national biodiesel mandate. That mandate is already in existence, but it is not enforced because the Environmental Protection Agency is still working out the accompanying rules.
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