Friday, July 03, 2009
1st load of biodiesel piped into Roanoke
A Texas energy company shipped the fuel up the Plantation Pipeline from the Gulf Coast.
The first commercial pipeline load of blended biodiesel fuel ever shipped in the United States was sent to Roanoke and Athens, Ga., last week, an energy company said.
"The shipment arrived in Roanoke, I believe, late last week," said Emily Mir Thompson, spokeswoman for Kinder Morgan Energy Partners a Texas pipeline company.
The shipment traveled from Mississippi in the Plantation Pipeline, which routinely carries gasoline and conventional diesel fuel. The special shipment consisted of 15,000 gallons of B5, a blend of 5 percent biodiesel made from plant material and 95 percent petroleum-based diesel, the company said.
Why Roanoke?
That's unclear.
Kinder Morgan issued a news release to announce that it had brought the fuel blend up via its underground pipeline, which comes from the south into the Roanoke region. The region is home to bulk fuel storage tank farms off Starkey Road in Roanoke County and in Montvale in Bedford County where fuel trucks fill up for delivery to customers. But the company declined to identify to whom the fuel belongs.
As a result, it is impossible to determine whether the fuel was shipped for a private fleet operator with its own tanks, a retailer planning to introduce biofuel at the pump or another user.
While biodiesel is sold at Crow's Nest Farm near Blacksburg and Red Birch Country Market in Bassett Forks, there are no biodiesel fuel pumps open to the public in the Roanoke Valley.
That could change.
"It's a very positive development," Jenna Higgins, spokeswoman for the National Biodiesel Board, said of the pipeline shipment. "Biodiesel transport through pipeline has the potential to open new and growing markets for biodiesel."
Biodiesel, a small percentage of all diesel fuel burned, is ordinarily moved by truck and, sometimes, rail.
Kinder undertook the shipment not to be a pioneer, but because a customer stepped forth with a shipment request, Mir Thompson said. The Houston-based company operates the Plantation Pipeline from the Gulf Coast to the Washington area, with a lateral into Western Virginia.
