South Louisiana, Texas gas plant, pipeline projects advance

Sept. 24, 2014
EnLink Midstream Partners LP, Dallas, has completed construction of Phase 2 of the Cajun-Sibon natural gas liquids expansion in South Louisiana as well as construction of the Bearkat gas processing plant and rich-gas gathering system in West Texas.

EnLink Midstream Partners LP, Dallas, has completed construction of Phase 2 of the Cajun-Sibon natural gas liquids expansion in South Louisiana as well as construction of the Bearkat gas processing plant and rich-gas gathering system in West Texas.

EnLink Midstream formed earlier this year when Devon Energy Corp. combined most of its midstream assets with Crosstex Energy. The new company owns and operates about 7,300 miles of gathering and transportation pipelines, 12 processing plants with 3.3 bcfd of net processing capacity, and six fractionators with 180,000 b/d of net fractionation capacity.

Cajun-Sibon

The South Louisiana project consisted of expanding the Cajun-Sibon pipeline by 50,000 b/d of raw make NGL capacity to 120,000 b/d; installing a 100,000-b/d fractionator at EnLink Mistrream’s Plaquemine gas processing plant; modifying its Riverside fractionator; and building and converting about 90 miles of NGL pipeline from EnLink’s Eunice, La., fractionator to its Plaquemine fractionator.

The company said the Cajun-Sibon project is supported by long term, fee-based ethane and propane sales agreements with a “major petrochemical company” in the region (OGJ Online, Aug. 6, 2014; Nov. 7, 2013).

West Texas

The first phase of the West Texas expansion included building the 60-MMcfd Bearkat gas plant in Glasscock County along with 65 miles of high-pressure gas gathering pipeline. The plant is complete. A portion of the gathering system, which includes 30 miles of pipeline that provides gas takeaway capacity for producers in Glasscock and Reagan counties, has also been completed.

The additional 35 miles, which will provide further gathering capacity for the Bearkat complex, is under way. The pipeline will have initial capacity of 100 MMcfd and provide takeaway for constrained producers in Howard, Martin, and Glasscock counties.

Right-of-way acquisition is complete, the company said, and the pipeline is to be operating in fourth quarter. The entire first phase of the expansion project is supported by long-term, fee-based agreements with major oil and gas producers in the region.

The second phase of the expansion includes a 120-MMcfd gas processing plant, multiple low-pressure gathering pipelines and a 23-mile high-pressure gathering pipeline that will tie into the Bearkat gas gathering system.

The Ajax processing plant will lie to the north of the Bearkat plant and increase total transportation capacity of the Bearkat gathering system to more than 400 MMcfd.

As part of this portion of the expansion, EnLink Midstream has signed a long-term, fee-based agreement with Devon Energy to provide gathering and processing for more than 18,000 acres under development in Martin County.

The pipelines are to be operating in first-quarter 2015 and the Ajax plant is to come online in second-half 2015.