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PROCESSING — Quick Takes
Quicksilver, KKR form Horn River midstream venture
Units of Quicksilver Resources Inc., Fort Worth, and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. LP have formed a midstream partnership to build and operate natural gas midstream services in British Columbia and the Northwest Territories of Canada.
The companies will jointly build and operate natural gas gathering, transportation, and processing infrastructure to maximize the value of the production stream from Quicksilver's development in the Horn River basin. And Quicksilver has dedicated current and future production from its Horn River acreage to the partnership.
The agreement covers midstream activity over about 30 million potential acres in the Horn River, Liard, and Cordova basins, which would include third-party transportation and processing infrastructure and agreements.
Quicksilver contributed its existing 20-mile, 20-in. gathering and compression and 10-year contracts for gas deliveries. KKR paid $125 million to Quicksilver in exchange for a 50% interest in the partnership.
The new partnership anticipates building a treating plant that will lower Quicksilver's cost to move its produced natural gas to market by roughly 80¢/Mcf compared with its current alternative. Quicksilver will operate the partnership.
The partnership announcement said this is the second step in "ensuring the lowest cost solution relative to current options" to move Quicksilver's gas to market. The first step, it said, was TransCanada PipeLine's extension of its Alberta system to Quicksilver's lands. The planned treating unit that KKR will fund will be at the terminus of this pipeline.
The announcement also stated that the wells in the Horn River basin of British Columbia are "among the most prolific of shale plays in North America."
Recoverable reserves from Quicksilver's acreage alone, said the company, could exceed 10 tcf of natural gas, citing a recent Canadian National Energy Board study that Horn River basin reserves could exceed 75 tcf.
Total to own all of Fina Antwerp Olefins
Total, through its 100% affiliate PetroFina SA, has agreed to acquire the 35% interest held by ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical BVBA in Fina Antwerp Olefins.
The Fina Antwerp Olefins monomer plant in Antwerp, Belgium, processes naphtha, butane, and propane from Total's nearby 360,000 b/d refinery. It can produce 1.415 million tonnes/year (tpy) of ethylene, 710,000 tpy of propylene, 90,000 tpy of benzene, 90,000 tpy of cyclohexane, and 50,000 tpy of toluene.
Total polymer plants at Antwerp and Feluy process products of Fina Antwerp Olefins.
After completion of the transaction, which is subject to approval of European competition authorities, Total will be sole owner of Fina Antwerp Olefins.
Delaware City refinery due hydrocracker
PBF Holding Co. LLC and affiliate Delaware City Refining Co. LLC have reported conditional plans to build a mild hydrocracker and hydrogen plant at their 190,000 b/d Delaware City, Del., refinery.
Delaware City Refining and another PBF affiliate bought the then-idle refinery and its operating terminal from Valero Energy Corp. in June 2010 and promptly announced plans to restart the refinery after performing maintenance (OGJ Online, June 2, 2010). Valero had shut the refinery in 2009 but kept the terminal open.
The new hydrocracker would cut sulfur content in about 65,000 b/d of distillate to less than 15 ppm from 2,000 ppm and allow processing of a heavier crude slate. It would handle streams from the Delaware City refinery and the 170,000 b/d refinery at Paulsboro, NJ, that PBF bought from Valero in December 2010 (OGJ Online, Sept. 27, 2010).
In a statement, PBF said the $1 billion construction project is contingent on "the issuance of timely and appropriate federal and state environmental and other permits that will not increase the cost to build or operate the project, as well as acceptable labor agreements that will ensure that the project can be built in an efficient and cost-effective manner."
Major process units at the Delaware City refinery are a fluid coking unit, fluid catalytic cracking unit, hydrocracking unit with a hydrogen plant, continuous catalytic reformer, two alkylation units, and several hydrotreating units.
The Paulsboro refinery has a delayed coker, fluid cat cracker, hydrotreaters, reformer, alkylation unit, and 12,000 b/d of lube oil processing capacity.
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