July 11, 2013 [OPIS] - Colonial Pipeline is considering a major expansion for a Louisiana storage tank farm, according to a permit application.
The expansion plan, named Project Lagniappe, will add about 2.5 million barrels of refined products and distillate storage to the facility, which currently has about 67,000 barrels of storage.
The facility will also be able to store light petroleum and gasoline blendstocks, in addition to refined products.
The Baton Rouge facility had been the site for an earlier project to add 10 storage tanks and a refined products pipeline to Georgia. But that project was scrapped in 2009 due to economic concerns.
Colonial has not announced an official launch or startup of the new expansion plan. But spokesman Steve Baker said Colonial is reviewing various expansion plans.
“Colonial is interested in engaging in expansion projects that add flexibility and usefulness to our pipeline system,” Baker said in an e-mail statement. “We are looking at a number of locations, including Baton Rouge, for projects that would help us better serve our customers.”
According to the application filed last year with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, the Baton Rouge Junction facility will receive gasoline, diesel, jet kerosene, naphtha, condensate and natural gasoline by pipeline for storage in above-ground tanks.
The facility will also receive butane by pipeline and trucks for blending into motor gasoline.
In order to handle the new products, the Baton Rouge facility will be adding 11 internal floating roof tanks with refined products and light petroleum storage capacity of 2 million barrels.
The facility will also add three fixed roof tanks with 500,000 bbl of distillate capacity. Colonial will also install a 41,500-bbl butane sphere and truck unloading facilities.
According to the application, construction on the new facility started last November and operations are expected to begin next April.
The Baton Rouge Junction Facility, which originally had 20 tanks, merged almost all of those assets into an adjacent tank farm for the Bengal Pipeline Company, a joint venture between Shell Pipeline and Colonial. The Bengal pipeline originates in Norco, La., and terminates at the existing farm in Baton Rouge.
The Bengal pipeline serves the Motiva and Valero refineries in Norco, Marathon’s refinery in Garyville, and a previously existing pipeline that connects Motiva’s refinery in Convent to the Bengal tank farm in Baton Rouge.
