By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Sept. 16 -- A natural gas processing agreement announced Sept. 15 will underpin a new 120-MMcfd gas plant in the Marcellus shale gas play.
MarkWest Liberty Midstream & Resources LLC, a partnership between MarkWest Energy Partners LP and the Midstream & Resources Funds, announced it had reached agreement with Chesapeake Appalachia LLC, a subsidiary of Chesapeake Energy Corp., and Statoil Natural Gas LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of StatoilHydro, to process gas at MarkWest Liberty’s new Majorsville processing plant in the panhandle of West Virginia.
This agreement is in addition to one MarkWest Liberty executed earlier this year with Range Resources to process gas at the Majorsville plant. All agreements include “significant acreage dedications and other commitments,” according to MarkWest’s announcement. The Majorsville plant is to be completed in mid-2010.
With its infrastructure in Marshall and Wetzel counties in West Virginia, NiSource Gas Transmission & Storage’s affiliate Columbia Gas Transmission will gather the rich gas produced by Chesapeake and Statoil. Per arrangements by MarkWest and Columbia announced in August 2008 (OGJ Online, Oct. 24, 2008), Columbia will deliver the gas to MarkWest’s Majorsville processing plant, which is planned to be adjacent Columbia`s existing Majorsville compressor station.
NGLs produced at the Majorsville plant will move via pipeline to MarkWest’s Houston, Pa., processing complex (OGJ Online, Apr. 9, 2009). MarkWest Liberty plans a 37,000-b/d fractionation plant at the Houston complex, as well as transportation, storage, and marketing infrastructure, to sell the NGLs into markets in the US Northeast.
The company currently operates a 22,000-b/d fractionation, storage, and marketing facility near Portsmouth, Ohio.