Permian pipeline boost faces market uncertainty

As crude oil prices continue to slump, concerns are mounting that associated natural gas production in the Permian basin will also slide. Outgoing Diamondback Energy Inc. chief executive officer Travis Stice said Diamondback would need West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prices to climb back to nearly $70/bbl before it would recommit capital to expanded production. 

In early May 2025, the company cut its 2025 capital spending plans by 10% ($400 million) and said it would be dropping three of its 15 rigs. At the time of writing, WTI cost $62.45/bbl, and though demand worries had waned somewhat as Pres. Donald Trump paused planned tariffs against China, supply-side pressure remained. 

A contraction in associated gas supplies would be good news for gas-focused drillers—boosting Waha hub prices away from the negative territory into which they’ve repeatedly dropped of late—but might also slow the need for new pipeline capacity, at least for the moment.

What follows are the current statuses of Permian-focused natural gas pipeline projects.

Hugh Brinson

Energy Transfer LP late last year took final investment decision on  its 2.2-bcfd Hugh Brinson natural gas pipeline, previously named Warrior. The 400-mile, 42-in. OD pipeline will connect Permian basin production to multiple markets, with the company expecting initial in-service by end-2026. 

Construction will take place in two phases, with Hugh Brinson’s 1.5-bcfd Phase 1 delivering gas  from the Waha hub to Maypearl, Tex., south of Dallas-Fort Worth, by that end-2026 target.

Phase 1 will also include the 42-mile, 36-in. OD Midland Lateral, connecting Energy Transfer and third-party processing plants in Martin and Midland Counties to the pipeline. 

Phase 2 will add compression to bring capacity to the total 2.2 bcfd and could be done concurrently with Phase 1 if market conditions warrant. Energy Transfer has soldout Phase 1 capacity and said in its first-quarter 2025 earnings call that it is “in negotiations that are well in excess of Phase 2 capacity.”

As of fourth-quarter 2024 the company expected 6-7 bcfd of additional Permian natural gas production to come online “over the next 4-5 years.” The continued demand for additional capacity on Hugh Brinson indicates that much of this production growth is still anticipated. 

Energy Transfer has secured the majority of the project’s steel, which is being rolled in US pipe mills, mitigating the potential impact of tariff-related costs. It also plans to make the line fully bidirectional. 

Overall expected project cost is $2.7 billion, with Energy Transfer expecting $1.3 billion of this to be spent in 2025. The company is now explicitly targeting increased gas-fired power generation driven by anticipated data-center demand in pursuing the project, though that  wasn’t the case when it was first proposed as Warrior. 

Traverse

In April 2025, WhiteWater, MPLX LP, and Enbridge Inc.—through their WPC joint venture—partnered with Targa Resources Corp. to build the 1.75-bcfd Traverse gas pipeline. 

The 160-mile, 36-in. OD bidirectional pipeline will run between the Agua Dulce hub in South Texas and the Katy hub outside Houston. 

WhiteWater will build and operate Traverse, which will carry gas from interconnections with WPC’s Whistler and Blackcomb pipelines, and the WhiteWater-operated Matterhorn Express pipeline, effectively completing a loop between Permian basin production, South Texas, and Houston-Louisiana destinations (Fig 1), including Venture Global Inc.’s 20-million tpy CP2 LNG plant in Cameron Parish, La. WhiteWater expects the pipeline to enter service in 2027.

Transport between the Houston area and Louisiana would be provided by WhiteWater’s 3.5-bcfd Blackfin pipeline. 

Blackcomb

Blackcomb is a 366-mile pipeline designed to transport 2.5 bcfd from the Permian basin to Agua Dulce. An 80-mile, 42-in. OD line will connect Midland basin gas processors to the line. 
WPC expects to begin construction third-quarter 2025, targeting a third-quarter 2026 in-service date. 

Apex

Targa in 2024 received permission from the Texas Railroad Commission to build the 536-mile, 42-in. OD Apex pipeline. Apex would carry 2 bcfd to Jefferson County, Tex., from Midland. The project, however, appears to have been at least temporarily shelved by Targa’s participation in Traverse. 

Rio Bravo

WPC expects its 4.5-bcfd Rio Bravo pipeline to enter service second-half 2026, carrying gas from Agua Dulce to NextDecade Corp.’s planned 27-million tpy Rio Grande LNG plant in Brownsville, Tex. 

DeLa Express

DeLa Express LLC, a subsidiary of Moss Lake Partners LP, last year let a front-end engineering and design contract to Wood to build the 2-bcfd DeLa Express pipeline from the Permian basin to the US Gulf Coast. The pipeline will run 645 miles of 42-in. OD pipe from Winkler County, Tex., to a gas plant in Calcasieu Parish, La., connecting to six laterals along the way supplying markets ranging from Port Arthur, Tex., to Cameron Parish, La. Moss Lake expects the pipeline to enter service in 2028.

Saguaro Connector

The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 2024 granted ONEOK Inc. a Presidential Permit to build and operate the Saguaro Connector natural gas pipeline border crossing into Mexico from Hudspeth County, Tex. The proposed 2.8-bcfd Saguaro Connector pipeline would use 155 miles of 48-in. pipe to transport Permian basin gas carried by ONEOK’s existing 777-MMcfd WesTex intrastate pipeline and other sources to Mexico by 2026. A pipeline on the Mexican side of the border would carry the gas to the west coast for liquefaction and export. 

The pipeline has since been mired in legal proceedings surrounding claims that FERC had 
improperly limited the scope of its analysis when granting the permit. 

Gulf Coast Express expansion

Operator Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) last year sanctioned a 570-MMcfd expansion of Gulf Coast Express, targeting a mid-2026 in-service date. As of April 2025, construction was under way, and the expansion was fully contracted. KMI estimated that tariffs would have a roughly 1% 
impact on project cost. 

Trident Intrastate

KMI is at the same time conducting preliminary survey work on its 1.5-bcfd Trident intrastate pipeline. The 216-mile line would begin west of Katy and run north to the Huntsville, Tex., area, before turning southeast and reaching its terminus near Port Arthur. 

Plans include delivery points in Grimes, San Jacinto, Liberty, Hardin, and Jefferson counties, Tex. Both Entergy Texas, a subsidiary of Entergy Corp., and ExxonMobil-QatarEnergy’s 18-million tpy Golden Pass LNG plant, under construction in Port Arthur, will receive shipments via Trident. Entergy will use the gas for power generation. 

KMI says it is in ongoing discussions with customers regarding adding capacity to the pipeline and that it expects to have it in service during first-quarter 2027, pending regulatory approvals. Trident is expandable up to 2.8 bcfd, according to the company. 

Permian-to-REX

Tallgrass Energy Partners in May  2025 executed anchor shipper precedent agreements for a new 2.4-bcfd pipeline to deliver from multipe points in the Permian basin to the 4-bcfd Rockies Express Pipeline (REX) and other destinations. The pipeline has a target in-service date of late 2028.

A future open season will let other companies subscribe to firm transportation on the pipeline, with its ultimate capacity based on the level of shipper interest.