Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (KMP), one of the leading pipeline and energy storage operators in North America, announced in September that it had begun shipping blended 2% biodiesel (B2) through a pipeline in Oregon.

Following a successful test run through the 184km pipeline from Portland to Eugene, the first commercial batch of about 100,000 barrels – a blend of biodiesel with ultra-low sulphur petroleum diesel – was mixed at the company’s terminal in Portland.

The Oregon move follows an earlier and much smaller commercial shipment – a 15,000-barrrel batch of B5, made by blending B99 with ultra-low sulphur petroleum diesel – from Collins, Mississippi to terminals in Georgia and Virginia (see Transport News OFI September 2009) through the Plantation Pipe Line system, which is majority owned by KMP.

The Houston-based company – which operates 35,200km of pipeline and 170 terminals in North America – said that the Oregon line’s proven ability to carry blended biodiesel would help fuel suppliers meet the state’s biodiesel requirement, which took effect on 1 October.