Colonial Pipeline decided in 2017 to close Line 25, calculating that repair costs exceeded its potential profits from continued operations
Source: Colonial Pipeline, Colonial Pipeline Line 25 Update #1 - October 17, 2017
Colonial Pipeline decided in 2017 to close Line 25, calculating that repair costs exceeded its potential profits from continued operations
Source: Colonial Pipeline, Colonial Pipeline Line 25 Update #1 - October 17, 2017
Colonial Pipeline constructed its mainline through Virginia in 1964. The company also built a spur from Mitchell Junction Tank Farm in Cumberland County to Montvale in Bedford County. The spur, called Line 25, delivered refined petroleum products such as diesel, gasoline, and home heating oil.
Line 25 stopped at the Montvale tank farm, 16 miles east of Roanoke. The pipeline company had wanted to build a spur to Bonsack, but local opposition in 1962 derailed that plan. Colonial Pipeline cusomers built above-ground storage tanks at Montvale and trucked petroleum products westward across the Blue Ridge to Roanoke.
Colonial Pipeline pumped diesel and gasoline to 30 above-ground tanks in Montvale, and tanker trucks then delivered the products to customers
Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online
A booster pump at Lynchburg segmented the pipeline. The maximum allowable operating pressure between Lynchburg-Roanoke (1440 pounds per square inch gauge pressure) was slightly higher than the pressure between Mitchell-Lynchburg (1305 pounds per square inch gauge pressure).1
the Line 25 spur of Colonial Pipeline connected with the mainline at the Mitchell Junction Tank Farm near Columbia
Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online
the tank farm at Mitchell Junction stores petroleum products, enabling pipeline operators to adjust volume and pressure and to stockpile batches until needed
Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online
The line transported one million barrels of refined products each month. Along the way, it served five separate terminals from which fuel trucks delivered petroleum products to customers.
Colonial Pipeline announced in 2017 that it would shut down Line 25, rather than spend the money required to repair almost 80 miles of pipeline. Colonial Pipeline gave the owners of the terminals a year's advance notice. That provided time to find alternative locations to load distribution trucks before the pipeline shutdown in 2018.2
Closing Line 25 meant that the businesses which had been using it, and ultimately their customers, would incur higher costs. Petroleum products will remain available, but tanker trucks will be required to drive a longer distance to Greensboro or potentially Richmond. The Virginia Petroleum, Convenience and Grocery Association estimated that prices at area gas stations would increase three to six cents per gallon, and add 170 additional tanker trips per day on the roads after the line closed.3
Colonial Pipeline calculated it would cost $200-300 million to repair Line 25. Closing that spur did not mean Colonial Pipeline would automatically lose business. The competing Plantation Pipeline spur to Roanoke was already near capacity. The tanker trucks that used to load up at Montvale may still end up using petroleum products transported by Colonial Pipeline, but drive further to Greensboro or Richmond.4
Closing a pipeline does not equate to total abandonment or removal of the pipe. Colonial announced it would drain the pipe, then fill it with an inert gas to prevent fumes from creating any explosion hazard. The company will also continue to mow grass and maintain the right-of-way, rather than allow it to revert to forest.5
Closing Line 25 eliminated 20 jobs at the Montvale, Virginia tank farm, since trucks shipping a million gallons per day were no longer needed. Offsetting that impact was the need to hire more truck drivers in North Carolina to transport refined petroleum products from Greensboro.6
Plantation Pipeline's spur from Greensboro to Roanoke did not have enough extra capacity to replace Line 25 deliveries
Source: KinderMorgan, Plantation Pipe Line Company (PPL)
One alternative to trucking gasoline and home heating oil from Greensboro was delivery via Norfolk Southern railroad by rail car to Roanoke. There is a terminal located on that railroad where tanker cars could deliver to storage tanks. KinderMorgan, owner of the Plantation Pipeline, has a terminal east of downtown Roanoke next to the Tinker Creek waste transfer station.
Redeveloping the decommissioned tank farm was not easy. None of the 47.5 million gallons once stored in 35 storage tanks remained; all petroleum products were drained into the Colonial Pipeline in 2018. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) found no leaks after decommissioning, though multiple releases had occurred while the tank farm was operating between 1963-2018.
In 2021, the Bedford County Board of Supervisors asked for state assistance in studying how petroleum products could be delivered by rail to the tank farm at Montvale. The site could have become another "inland port," just 18 miles east of I-81 on US 460 and with a rail connection to the terminals of the Port of Virginia. However, a site near Bristol was chosen to be the inland port and the tanks farm at Montvale remained closed.
Bedford County and the Lynchburg Regional Business Alliance partnered to create a Montvale Target Advisory Group. It struggled to get the six different oil companies that owned portions of the 140-acre tank farm and had tapped into the Colonial Pipeline to agree to any strategy for using the site. Since the storage facility was no longer useful, it was expected that the tanks would ultimately be demolished. How to repurpose the land into a productive use remained unclear in 2024.7
one alternative to Line 25 is to ship petroleum products to KinderMorgan's terminal by rail
Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online