OREANDA-NEWS. Kinder Morgan will stop accepting iso-octane nominations on the west coast-bound Trans Mountain pipeline on 1 July, the company said today in a notice to shippers.

Iso-octane is produced at Keyera's 13,600 b/d Alberta EnviroFuels (AEF) facility in Edmonton, Alberta, the world's largest such facility.

Iso-octane was previously shipped via the Trans Mountain pipeline from the Edmonton terminal to Vancouver, British Columbia, and then railed or sent by truck to refineries in that region.

Iso-octane's market share as a west coast blendstock has all but dried up, sources told Argus, as cheap ethanol has flooded the region's market. Ethanol is an inexpensive source of octane in part thanks to mandated blending spurred by federal renewable mandates.

Keyera now almost exclusively ships iso-octane to the Chicago and Gulf coast regions via rail for gasoline blending.

Kinder Morgan will decommission and reassign all iso-octane associated infrastructure at the Trans Mountain Edmonton Terminal.

Field-grade butane is the main feedstock component for iso-octane.