NEW YORK, March 10 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell's entireHouston-to-Houma crude oil pipeline remained shut on Monday, following areported leak late last week, the company said.
Construction crew members accidentally punctured the Ho-Ho line near PortNeches, Texas, about 100 miles east of Houston, on Thursday afternoon, releasingabout 364 barrels of crude oil.
"I am unable to speculate on how long the line will remain shut down," saidDestin Singleton, a Shell spokeswoman.
The company has deployed absorbent booms and vacuum trucks to the site ofthe leak to contain and recover the crude, Singleton added.
The Ho-Ho system, which includes a 360,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) pipelinefrom Port Neches, Texas, to Houma, Louisiana, was shut for planned maintenanceearlier this year, barely a month after Shell reversed the line's flow and begancommercial service.
The pipeline system also includes a 500,000 bpd line from Houma to the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port's (LOOP) Clovelly hub in Louisiana, and a300,000-bpd segment from Houma to St. James, Louisiana.
Shell had discovered another leak near one of the pipeline's pumpingstations in Channelview, Texas, in February.