Plantation completed the first transmarket commercial shipment of blended 5 percent biodiesel (B5) on a mainline segment of their pipeline system.
B99 (99 percent biodiesel) was injected into ultra low sulphur diesel at Plantation’s Collins, Mississippi, pump station and breakout tank farm creating a 15,000 barrel batch of B5 that it then shipped to marketing terminals located in the states of Georgia, and Virginia. Upon receipt of the product at both facilities, Kinder Morgan performed testing on samples from the batch and found that the samples arrived on specification.
“We believe the blending and transportation of biodiesel by pipeline will have significant advantages for our customers when compared to the alternative of installing capital intensive blending facilities at individual marketing terminals,” said KMP Products Pipeline president Tom Bannigan.
“Kinder Morgan is initially focusing on moving blended biodiesel on segments of the Plantation system that transport only gasoline and diesel because of concerns about possible “trailback” of biodiesel into subsequent jet fuel batches. If we can work through these issues, we will evaluate the possibility of moving blended biodiesel to every market on the Plantation system” added Bannigan.
Plantation maintains a pipeline system that runs approximately 5,000km through the Southeastern states of the US.
Plantation is operated by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners.
