Enterprise, Duncan to expand Eagle Ford plants

May 13, 2010
Enterprise Products Partners LP and Duncan Energy Partners LP plan to expand their jointly owned Shoup and Armstrong processing plants in South Texas.

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, May 13
-- Enterprise Products Partners LP and Duncan Energy Partners LP plan to expand their jointly owned Shoup and Armstrong processing plants in South Texas. The plants process natural gas and fractionate NGLs.

The companies said the upgrades are part of a more comprehensive plan to expand the their midstream infrastructure in South Texas to handle increasing natural gas production from the growing Eagle Ford shale play.

What’s planned
Work at Shoup, in Nueces County, Tex., will modify existing fractionation to increase capacity to 77,000 b/d with work completed in this year’s second quarter. Incremental volumes of NGLs to fill the additional capacity will be supplied by six existing Enterprise gas plants currently feeding Shoup. Production from these plants will increase over the next 6 months as the quantity and quality of the gas supplies increase, said the announcement.

Modifications to existing infrastructure at the Armstrong plant in DeWitt County, Tex., will increase its fractionation capacity to more than 20,000 b/d. Supply for the increase will be enhanced by an efficiency improvement at the on site natural gas processing plant, said the announcement.

The improvements in processing capabilities, scheduled for completion in fourth-quarter 2010, will increase NGL recoveries. In additional, the gas plant and fractionator upgrades will allow Armstrong to handle the more liquid-rich gas that characterizes much of the reserves in the Eagle Ford shale.

Construction update
Elsewhere in the Eagle Ford shale, Enterprise continues work on two gas pipeline projects it expects to provide more than 200 MMcfd of incremental transportation capacity.

The final segment of pipeline that completes the White Kitchen lateral will be completed in mid-July. The 62-mile line runs through the heart of the Eagle Ford shale in LaSalle and Webb counties and connects two existing Enterprise 20-in. lines that lie at the northern and southern edges of the play.

Construction is also nearing completion on the first segment of the east-west Eagle Ford shale mainline project. The 34-mile, 24-in. line will connect the companies’ South Texas pipeline in southwest LaSalle County to the White Kitchen lateral by June.