AMSTERDAM, June 27 (Reuters) - A section of a petroleumpipeline between Germany and the Netherlands has been closedduring an investigation of suspected theft, German police andcompany officials said on Friday.
The 583-km Rhein-Main-Rohrleitungstransportgesellschaft(RMR) pipeline transports oil products from theAmsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp refining hub to Germany. Its mainstakeholders are Royal Dutch Shell and BP.
Shell and BP declined to comment.
An official at RMR said in a statement sent to Reuters: "Wecan confirm that RMR is impacted by an incident in the Cologneregion.. .We currently expect that the affected section of ourpipeline will be back in operation by Monday."
No other details were provided about how much may have beenstolen from the pipeline, which has a 250,000 barrel-per-day(bpd) capacity.
German police spokesman Christoph Gilles said the incident dated back several weeks or even months, but that the policewere only informed about it on Tuesday evening.
In a rare case of fuel theft in Germany, an unidentifiedculprit connected a 10-metre long hose and tap to the pipelineand hundreds of litres of petrol leaked onto the ground.
"We are investigating petrol theft and environmentaloffences," Gilles said. (Reporting By Kirsti Knolle and Ron Bousso. Writing by AnthonyDeutsch; editing by Jason Neely)