(Reuters) - Tallgrass Energy LP said on Thursday it has shut down the south end of its Pony Express pipeline system due to flooding, and provided notice of a temporary embargo of deliveries.
Extensive flooding on the Cimarron River in Oklahoma required the temporary embargo on all movements into destinations located near Cushing, Oklahoma, the company said.
The Pony Express pipeline has a capacity of 320,000 barrels per day. The pipeline starts in Guernsey, Wyoming, and flows southeast to Cushing, according to the company's website.
The shut segment runs from Sterling, Colorado through to Cushing, Oklahoma, a Tallgrass Energy spokeswoman said.
"We will restart operations as soon as the weather permits," she added.
A relentless barrage of violent weather has hit the central United States, including tornadoes in southwestern Missouri that devastated the state capital and heavy rains that prompted flooding in Oklahoma. The weather has resulted in three deaths, according to local media.
"It looks to stay quite wet over the next week across the central portion of the country," said meteorologist Mark Chenard of the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.
(Reporting by K. Sathya Narayanan, Karthika Namboothiri and Arijit Bose in Bengaluru; editing by Lisa Shumaker and Richard Pullin)
