Enterprise-Enbridge Oil Pipeline Restarts After Texas Spill

   By Dan Molinski 
 

A major oil pipeline owned by Enterprise Products Partners (EPD) and Enbridge Inc. (ENB) resumed pumping Sunday after being halted nearly a week ago due to a rupture and spill in Texas.

The 400,000-barrels-a-day Seaway S-1 pipeline carries crude oil 500 miles from a storage hub in Cushing, Okla. toward refineries near Houston. The high-pressure line had to shut Monday when a third-party road construction crew in the Dallas area punctured it.

"Crude oil began flowing this morning and operations are normal," said a statement from the Seaway Crude Pipeline Company LLC, a joint-venture between Houston-based Enterprise and Canadian firm Enbridge that operates the line. It said all needed repairs are complete.

The companies haven't provided an estimate of how much oil was spilled. The rupture Monday created a gusher several stories high that sprayed oil all over a nearby highway, forcing the road to close in both directions for many hours. A nearby gun shop and gas station were also closed and evacuated temporarily.

The same pipeline also had an oil spill in October that forced the line to be shut for a week while cleanup and repairs were done.

An Enterprise representative said the day after the rupture that barriers and other safeguards are supposed to prevent accidental ruptures by construction crews, or other such incidents, and said the investigation is looking into what apparently went wrong in this case.

Write to Dan Molinski at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 05, 2017 19:06 ET (00:06 GMT)

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