Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P. (NYSE: KMP) announced plans to invest up to $100 million to expand its terminal facilities to help serve the growing biodiesel market. z
KMP has entered into long-term agreements with Green Earth Fuels, LLC to build up to 1.3 million barrels of tankage that will handle approximately 8 million barrels of biodiesel production at KMP’s terminals on the Houston Ship Channel, the Port of New Orleans and in New York Harbor. Green Earth Fuels has agreed to build biodiesel production facilities at various KMP terminal sites in these regions and has already begun construction on an 86 million gallon facility at KMP’s Galena Park Terminal on the Houston Ship Channel that is expected to commence operations in July 2007.
In addition to biodiesel, KMP has significantly increased its handling of ethanol and continues to pursue additional ethanol opportunities in both its terminals and products pipelines business units. In 2006, KMP handled approximately 1.5 billion gallons of ethanol, almost 30 percent of the domestic ethanol market. The terminals group currently provides ethanol services at its facilities in Chicago, New York Harbor, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Los Angeles and Houston, while the products pipelines group provides storage and blending of ethanol at its terminals in California, Nevada, Arizona, Virginia and Florida.
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P. is one of the largest publicly traded pipeline limited partnerships in America and owns or operates more than 27,000 miles of pipelines and approximately 145 terminals. Its pipelines transport more than 2 million barrels/day of gasoline and other petroleum products and up to 9 billion cubic feet/day of natural gas; and, its terminals handle over 80 million tons of coal and other bulk materials annually and have a liquids storage capacity of about 70 million barrels for petroleum products and chemicals. KMP is also the leading provider of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery projects in the United States.
Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Green Earth Fuels, LLC is a team of energy industry veterans focused on the development of a petroleum-friendly biodiesel infrastructure that provides the requisite scale, product quality and streamlined logistics necessary to reliably supply leading energy industry participants. The Green Earth Fuels biodiesel facilities will be embedded within the existing petroleum complex and will employ the rigorous quality standards and processes necessary to conform to both ASTM-D6751 and BQ9000 biodiesel specifications.
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