24/7 Wall St.: Kinder Morgan Starts Ethanol Pipeline (KMP)

The company said it spent $10 million to modify the line in order to make it suitable for transporting ethanol, which, due to its water content, could not be shipped on existing pipelines. Kinder Morgan expects to spend another $90 million on modifications to existing racks, tanks, and infrastructure to transport more ethanol.

This pipeline is the first of its kind in the US, and maybe in the world. The only other project we've heard about is an ethanol pipeline in Brazil. The big question now is whether there will be any ethanol to stuff into the pipelines. Ethanol makers in the US are struggling, and it's not certain that all the 175 or so US ethanol plants will be operating a year from now.