Enterprise's Pascagoula Plant Catches Fire, Closed For Now

Enterprise Products Partners L.P.’s (NYSE:EPD) plant in Pascagoula, MS caught fire on Jun 28 but was brought under control shortly after. The cause of the fire is being investigated.

Meanwhile, officials were forced to close the 225 mile (362 kilometer) Destin gas pipeline system that has a capability to move 1.2 billion cubic feet per day from offshore fields to Pascagoula.

Given that the fire was mainly restricted inside the facility, neither injuries nor any impact on the surrounding community was noticed. The plant has been temporarily shut down.

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The personnel at Enterprise Products Partners have been working closely with local emergency responders. In addition, the partnership has notified all appropriate regulatory authorities.

The Pascagoula plant obtains natural gas from third party pipelines. The plant has three trains with a capacity of about 1.5 billion cubic feet per day. The facility was averaging about 400 million cubic feet per day of inlet volumes. Enterprise Products Partners is working with its customers and third party facility operators to keep them updated about the incident and keep track of other available options while the Pascagoula plant is out of service.

The Pascagoula plant was earlier owned by BP plc (LON:BP). Enterprise Products Partners gained 100% ownership of the plant after acquiring the outstanding interest from BP during the first quarter of 2016.

Enterprise Products Partners is a core holding in an MLP portfolio, given its string of organic growth projects, potential acquisitions, strong balance sheet and solid liquidity position. The partnership is one of the largest fully integrated midstream service providers with a positive long-term outlook and significant geographic and business diversity.

Enterprise Products Partners holds a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Other well-ranked players from the energy sector are Boardwalk Pipeline Partners, LP (NYSE:BWP) , FutureFuel Corp. (NYSE:FF) and ReneSola Ltd. (NYSE:SOL) . Each of these stocks sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).