A commercial shipment of biodiesel has moved through a pipeline in the United States for the first time, according to Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, a pipeline company.

A 5 percent biodiesel blend moved from Mississippi to Georgia, and also from Mississippi to Virginia, via the Plantation Pipe Line Company, which is owned jointly by Kinder Morgan with a 51 percent stake, and Exxon Mobil with 49 percent. Last December, Kinder Morgan announced that the nation’s first ethanol pipeline had begun service.


Biodiesel moves mainly by truck, said Paul Knott, the treasurer of the North Carolina Biodiesel Association, especially in the East. “There just isn’t that huge infrastructure yet because the product’s use is relatively small relative to how much gasoline is used,” Mr. Knott said.

Besides the small market, another obstacle to pipeline movement is that biodiesel must avoid contact with jet fuel, which it can contaminate.