An explosion early Tuesday morning on the Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) pipeline in Washington Parish, LA, 80 miles north of New Orleans destroyed a mobile home and caused the evacuation of 55 area residents. Gas supplies moving on the west-to-east pipeline were rerouted, operator Energy Transfer Partners said. No injuries were reported

Some traders reported pro-rata cuts due to the explosion and rerouting of gas (see related story). The explosion occurred at about 5:30 a.m. CDT.

No details about the potential cause of the explosion were available Tuesday. According to press reports, about 10,000 customers of the Washington-Street Tammany Electric Cooperative in Louisiana lost power temporarily due to the explosion.

FGT has capacity to carry up to 3.1 Bcf/d and serves the Florida market. The 5,500-mile system is owned by Florida Gas Transmission Co LLC, an Energy Transfer Partners and Kinder Morgan Inc affiliate. The Florida customer base includes electric utilities, independent power producers, industrials and local distribution companies.

On Tuesday FGT posted a customer notice to its bulletin board related to the explosion. It announced unscheduled maintenance on one of the two pipeline mainlines “just downstream of FGT Compressor Station 9. Starting with the gas day of June 19, 2013, FGT will schedule up to 1,100,000 MMBtu/d through Station 9,” the pipeline said. “During normal operations FGT schedules up to 1,250,000 MMBtu/d through Compressor Station 9. The duration of this maintenance has not been determined at this time.”

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