Exxon fixing crude line after oil sheen in Louisiana

ExxonMobil Pipeline Company said on Friday it had shut down a 12-inch pipeline carrying crude after finding an oil sheen in the water near Barataria Bay, Louisiana.

Exxon said it planned to resume its operations later on Friday after repairs. The pipeline carries Heavy Louisiana Sweet crude from Empire in the state's southernmost Plaquemines Parish to Raceland in Lafourche Parish.

Exxon is working with regulators at the site of a "very light sheen, which was limited to the immediate area," company spokeswoman Amber Gardner said in an e-mail.

Gardner did not provide details on what caused the oil sheen or when it was discovered. She declined to give the capacity of the pipeline.

The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said it was probing the incident but has not issued any orders restricting the pipeline's restart.

Louisiana's Department of Environmental Quality declined to comment.

A spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard's Division Eight, which covers Louisiana, said it did not have information about the sheen, and added that the Coast Guard would look into it.

In April, Exxon reported a leak and an 1,800 barrel oil spill from the North Line of the HLS pipeline system. It received a corrective action order from regulator PHMSA.

Traders in cash crude and oil products markets said there was no immediate indication that a shutdown of the small pipeline had affected prices of physical crude or products in the region on Friday.

(Reporting by Joshua Schneyer, Kristen Hays and Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Dan Grebler)