Williams, Tulsa, has agreed to acquire the 50% general partner interest it doesn’t now own in Access Midstream Partners LP, Oklahoma City, along with limited partnership units raising its stake to 50% from Global Infrastructures Partners II for $5.995 billion cash.
Williams also proposes to merge Access Midstream with Williams Partners LP, of which it is general partner. Williams bought its original half-interest in Access Midstream and 23% of the limited partnership interests from Global Infrastructure Partners II in December 2012.
Access Midstream is a gathering and processing master limited partnership formed in 2010. It’s active in the Barnett, Eagle Ford, Marcellus, Haynesville, Niobrara, Midcontinent, Utica, and Permian basin plays in nine states.
Its assets, valued at about $8.3 billion, include more than 6,300 miles of gathering and transmission pipeline. The company gathers about 3.8 bcfd of natural gas.
The acquisition isn’t contingent on completion of the proposed merger.
The proposal is for an exchange of units at the rate of 0.85 unit of Access Midstream per unit of Williams Partners, subject to adjustments.
The resulting master limited partnership would be called Williams Partners LP.
The existing Williams Partners owns interests in three interstate gas pipelines—Transco, Northwest, and Gulfstream—with combined peak-day delivery capacity of about 14 bcfd.
It also owns gas-gathering and processing assets in Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, the Gulf Coast, and the Marcellus shale region of Pennsylvania.
Its Gulf Coast assets also include a petrochemical plant at Geismar, La., with capacity of 1.3 billion lb/year of ethylene.
