Energy infrastructure provider Kinder Morgan has announced that its renewable diesel (RD) hub projects in Southern and Northern California are now fully operational.
Renewable diesel is an alternative biofuel that significantly reduces life-cycle emissions for trucks, trains and any equipment that uses diesel to operate. It can created and refined from fats and oils such as canola or soybean and offsets waste emissions.
Kinder Morgan says its RD hubs provide an efficient and less carbon-intensive way of transporting this lower-emission fuel from the Los Angeles refinery basin to San Diego and the Inland Empire, and from the San Francisco Bay area to Sacramento, San Jose and Fresno. The initial phases of both hubs have received customer commitments and are fully subscribed, the company adds.
“We are very pleased to be advancing California’s climate goals through our Southern and Northern California RD hubs,” said Dax Sanders, President of Products Pipelines at KMI. “These projects present a significant opportunity to participate in the transition to lower emissions energy sources of the future while continuing to provide fuels still in demand today.”
“We are confident that the best way to serve markets during this energy evolution is through an all-of-the-above energy mix. Pipelines continue to be the safest and most cost-efficient mode of long-haul transportation for liquid fuels,” Sanders added.
Kinder Morgan announced plans for the Southern California Renewable Diesel Hub project little more than a year ago.
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The Southern California hub has been delivering renewable diesel to San Diego since February this year, with deliveries to Colton recently commencing. It offers a throughput of up to 20,000 barrels per day (bpd) of blended diesel across the two inland destination truck racks. The hub connects marine supplies of RD coming into the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to the Los Angeles market via the truck rack at SFPP’s Carson Terminal and to KMI’s SFPP pipeline system for delivery to the Inland Empire and San Diego areas.
The Northern California hub provides a throughput of 21,000 bpd of RD via the SFPP northern pipeline system from the San Francisco Bay area to KMI’s Bradshaw, Fresno and San Jose terminals, and is now starting movement of RD to those markets. KMI says it utilized existing infrastructure for the Northern California hub, with potential capacity expansions available in subsequent phases.
Headquartered in Houston, Kinder Morgan owns an interest in or operates approximately 83,000 miles of pipelines, 141 terminals, and 700 billion cubic feet of working natural gas storage capacity in North America.
