Enterprise Shut 10-Inch Texas Crude Line After Leak

Enterprise Products Partners LP shut a 10-inch crude gathering pipeline in a rural area near Iola, Texas, after a leak was discovered yesterday, Rick Rainey, a company spokesman, said today. The leak is estimated to be 7,000 barrels, he said.

“We discovered that there was an imbalance to what was going into the pipe and what was coming out on the other end,” Rainey, who is based at the company’s Houston headquarters, said in a telephone interview. There was not enough of a pressure drop to detect the leak right away, he said.

The gathering line is part of the South Texas crude system and runs from the Huffsmith Station to Mexia, Texas, he said. No refiners will be affected and no residents had to be evacuated, according to Rainey.

Prolonged pipeline outages may force refiners to reduce operating rates, possibly increasing prices for refined products as companies turn to spot markets for oil.

Enterprise, the largest U.S. pipeline partnership by market value, owns 4,400 miles (7080 kilometers) of onshore crude pipelines and 10.5 million barrels of above-ground storage tank capacity, according to the company website. Iola is 85 miles northwest of Houston.

To contact the reporter on this story: Leela Landress in Houston at llandress@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net