Energy Transfer Partners announced Thursday it will expand two natural gas infrastructure projects on the Gulf Coast in response to booming production of natural gas liquids in the Eagle Ford Shale and other Texas fields.
In a $210 million expansion, the Dallas-based pipeline company will build a processing facility in Karnes County and extend its Riche Eagle Ford Mainline pipeline. And as part of its Lone Star joint venture with Regency Energy Partners, Energy Transfer plans to build a second natural gas liquids fractionation facility at its Mont Belvieu complex, the company announced.
The expansions “exemplify the continued robust demand by our customers for additional infrastructure in the Eagle Ford Shale,” said Senior Vice President Brian Beebe.
The Karnes County facility, which will process up to 200 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, is schedule to be completed by the end of 2012. Along with two previously announced processing plants in Chisholm County and Jackson County, the system will have a processing capacity of approximately 1.125 billion cubic feet per day, according to Energy Transfer.
The pipeline extension will add another 37 miles of pipe to the Rich Eagle Ford Mainline. Approximately 160 miles of the 30-inch pipeline started operating in October. By the planned completion of the extension at the end of 2013, the entire pipeline will stretch 257 miles and have a capacity of more than one billion cubic feet per day, the company said.
The second Lone Star NGL fractionation facility will have a capacity to process 100,000 barrels per day, an expansion necessitated by the increased flow of natural gas liquids from the Permian Basin in West Texas, the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas and the Woodford Shale in Oklahoma, the company said. It is scheduled to be completed in early 2014, the company said.
The fractionator will be part of the $350 million West Texas Gateway system, designed to link natural gas liquids suppliers with markets along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. The project also includes storage facilities, pipelines and another fractionator expected to come online in early 2013.
