Woodford gathering, processing plans advance

Oct. 16, 2014
Tall Oak Midstream LLC subsidiary TOMPC LLC has secured financing for building and expanding Tall Oak’s gathering and processing in the central northern Oklahoma Woodford (CNOW) shale gas play.

Tall Oak Midstream LLC subsidiary TOMPC LLC has secured financing for building and expanding Tall Oak’s gathering and processing in the central northern Oklahoma Woodford (CNOW) shale gas play (OGJ Online, June 25, 2014).

The unit has secured a $100 million senior credit facility, which can be expanded to $150 million. Tall Oak was formed earlier this year to operate in the US Midcontinent.

Together with $400 million in previous private equity commitments from EnCap Flatrock Midstream and Tall Oak’s founders, said the company, the credit facility brings Tall Oak’s total financing to more than $500 million.

Tall Oak also said it had reached agreement with Dorado E&P Partners LLC under which Dorado will dedicate gas production from its 15,000-gross-acre position in Oklahoma’s Noble County to Tall Oak’s CNOW system. Dorado is rapidly expanding its own CNOW acreage, which sits inside a productive 300,000-acre area in Noble, Payne, and Logan counties.

Production from any acreage Dorado adds to its position in this area, Tall Oak said, will also be dedicated to its CNOW system.

That system handles volumes from several producers in the play’s liquids-rich, stacked pay zones including the Mississippi Lime, Woodford shale, Cleveland, and Meramec formations. American Energy–Woodford LLC (AEW), an affiliate of American Energy Partners LP, has already made a long-term acreage dedication to the CNOW system.

Tall Oak’s initial system includes a 250-mile, low-pressure gathering system with several compression sites and the Battle Ridge cryogenic gas plant under construction in Payne County, Okla. It will come online in January 2015 with initial processing capacity of 75 MMcfd and nitrogen rejection.

Tall Oak said the Battle Ridge site is large enough to accommodate planned expansions, which are expected to bring capacity to 300 MMcfd.