Kinder to move U.S. biodiesel blend via pipeline

NEW YORK Feb 4 (Reuters) - Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (KMP.N) said Wednesday it expects to move fuels blended with five percent biodiesel across the South in the Plantation oil products pipeline this year.

The company, one of the largest pipeline companies in the United States, recently moved 20,000 barrels of the blended fuel via a Mississippi-to-South Carolina segment of the line in a test it called a success.

Company spokeswoman Emily Mir Thompson said Kinder would ship the fuel blends along portions of the line that carry gasoline and diesel fuel. That way, any potential "trail back" of biodiesel into jet fuel would be averted.

The Plantation line moves oil products from refineries along the Gulf of Mexico to the Southeast. Kinder expects to move the blends, known as B5, to markets in Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia.

Kinder said late last year it is also moving batches of another biofuel -- ethanol-- through a 105 mile (170 km) products line in Florida.

It may soon extend that practice to another pipeline in the U.S. Southeast or West, the spokeswoman said on Wednesday. (Reporting by Timothy Gardner, editing by John Picinich)