Exelon reports gas fire near Texas power plant

HOUSTON, April 23 (Reuters) - Operators at Exelon Corp.'s (EXC.N) Handley natural gas-fired power plant in north Texas are checking for damage after a brief pipeline fire early Monday, a company spokesman said.

The 1,441-megawatt Handley Generating Station near Fort Worth was not running and not scheduled to operate on Monday, said Exelon spokesman Ben Armstrong.

"We have returned to the facility and are doing a walk down" to assess possible damage, Armstrong said.

A gas release from a pipeline owned by Energy Transfer that caught fire about 7 a.m. CDT on Monday was extinguished in about a half hour, said an Energy Transfer spokeswoman. No injuries were reported from the release or fire, she said.

The pipeline serves Handley units 4 and 5, Armstrong said. Exelon operates three of the five gas units at Handley which it purchased from Dallas-based TXU Corp. TXU.N in 2001. Units 1 and 2 are inactive. The oldest generating unit at the site went into service in 1948.

The Handley site, which sells power into the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, also has another source for its gas supply, Exelon said.