Wednesday April 12, 1:08 pm Eastern Time

Equilon reroutes 8,400 bpd of crude from damaged line NEW YORK, April 12 (Reuters) - Equilon Enterprises said on Wednesday it was rerouting some 8,400 barrels per day (bpd) of Louisiana sweet crude, following a rupture in an offshore Gulf of Mexico pipeline.

A company spokeswoman said the crude was being diverted from the ruptured 12-inch pipeline into a larger 20-inch line to take the crude to the mainland.

A rupture in the line on Tuesday forced the company to shut in a 16,000 bpd section of pipeline in the approximately 300,000-bpd Odyssey crude pipeline network.

The spokeswoman did not have a time frame for when the full volume would be returned to the market, and could not specify if the affected volumes were heavy or light crude.

Early Tuesday, traders reported a disruption in Heavy Louisiana Sweet production in the offshore, which firmed values for HLS by 30 cents. Traders valued the grade at a 95/85 cent discount to benchmark crude West Texas Intermediate/Cushing on Wednesday, about five cents stronger than on Tuesday.

Approximately 580 gallons of crude leaked from the Odyssey into the Gulf, about five miles off the coast of Louisiana, causing a 100-yard wide oil slick about 2.5 miles long.

Equilon is a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: SHL.L) and Texaco Inc. (NYSE:TX - news).

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000412/xx.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), April 12, 2000