Meritage building oil, gas infrastructure in western Canada

Aug. 13, 2015
Meritage Midstream Services III LP, the Canadian affiliate of Denver-based Meritage Midstream Services, has agreed with producer Canadian International Oil Corp. to build natural gas gathering, compression, and processing assets and crude oil gathering assets to support the development of CIOC’s Montney and Duvernay shale positions in west-central Alberta.

Meritage Midstream Services III LP, the Canadian affiliate of Denver-based Meritage Midstream Services, has agreed with producer Canadian International Oil Corp. to build natural gas gathering, compression, and processing assets and crude oil gathering assets to support the development of CIOC’s Montney and Duvernay shale positions in west-central Alberta.

Meritage III will provide 75 MMcfd of gas gathering and processing capacity—expandable to 225 MMcfd—and up to 10,000 b/d of crude oil gathering capacity. Construction of both systems began in May.

The 42-km, high-pressure gas gathering system will deliver rich gas to the new processing plant, which will be 60 miles south of Grand Prairie, Alta. The plant is expected to come into service in April 2016 and will offer connections for residue gas to the TransCanada pipeline and other delivery points.

The 37-km crude oil gathering system follows the same route as most of the gas gathering pipeline and will connect to Pembina Pipeline Corp.’s Karr lateral pipeline, which will serve Pembina's terminal in the Lator area of northwest Alberta.

Meritage Midstream III is backed by $300 million in equity commitments from funds managed by Riverstone Holdings LLC.

Meritage also announced that Michael A. Hantzsch has joined the company as senior vice-president, Canada, where he will lead Meritage’s soon-to-open office in Calgary. He has more than 37 years of experience in the energy industry with a focus on Canada.

Hantzsch has held senior positions with several energy companies, including Williams Energy, Provident Energy, and most recently Pembina as vice-president, oil sands and heavy oil. While at Williams he was responsible for managing the company’s initial interest in the Alliance pipeline project and later played a key role in the purchase of TransCanada Midstream’s NGL business.