Pipline in the works
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Wednesday, September 26, 2007 | 
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No comments [ Add Comment ]By Charles F. Trentelman
Standard-Examiner staff
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By Charles F. Trentelman
Standard-Examiner staff
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By Charles F. Trentelman
Standard-Examiner staff
OGDEN -- A 400-mile pipeline from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas has the potential to take hundreds of gasoline tanker trucks off I-15 every day, an executive of Holly Corporation, which is building the line, said Tuesday.
The pipeline, to be completed in early 2009, will also distribute gasoline and other petroleum products to Southern Utah through a depot in Iron County, west of Cedar City.
"We're excited about it," said Jim Townsend, senior vice president of Holly Corporation, headquartered in Dallas, on a visit to the editorial board of the Standard-Examiner.
"We think that Salt Lake, Cedar City, St. George, they're growing by leaps and bounds. There's gasoline going down there every day by truck, and we think we've got a better mousetrap."
In addition to Holly, Sinclair Oil is taking part in the project and owns a 25 percent share.
Holly operates one refinery in Woods Cross, but Townsend said the pipeline will be a "common carrier," open to use by all refineries.
It can do that, he said, because gasoline and other oil products are what is known as "fungible" commodities, easily exchanged for the same thing elsewhere.
A company that puts gasoline in one end of the pipeline can deliver an equal amount at the other end, although it may not be the same gasoline.
The amount of gasoline going south from Salt Lake City is already substantial, he said. Just the Cedar City area uses 7,000 to 10,000 barrels of gasoline and diesel a day, which is enough to fill 70 tanker trucks.
The pipeline will be able to carry nearly 120,000 barrels a day, or more than 700 tanker loads.
There is not now any line to carry gasoline or other petroleum products from the Salt Lake City refineries to Las Vegas.
Townsend said the $300 million project, which will start construction in July, 2008, will begin at a terminal near the Chevron refinery in Woods Cross, go west and south to Tooele Valley, then south.
Most of the land the underground 12-inch pipeline will cross is controlled by the federal Bureau of Land Management, Townsend said, but it will also cross land owned by about 200 individuals.
Most of those property owners are in Salt Lake and Utah counties, he said. Environmental assessments and the required public meetings to cross public lands have been held, and he expects approvals to be no problem.
Townsend said he is also meeting with local and state officials along the route of the pipeline to smooth out any concerns.
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