Howard Midstream Energy Partners LLC (dba Howard Energy Partners, HEP) has closed on its previously announced agreement with MPLX LP subsidiary MarkWest Energy Partners LP to acquire MarkWest Javelina Co. LLC’s Javelina cryogenic natural gas processing and fractionation complex in Corpus Christi, Tex. (OGJ Online, Dec. 29, 2020).
HEP finalized the transaction to take ownership of the Javelina complex on Feb. 15, the operator said.
Purchase of the complex—which is connected via pipeline to all of the major refineries in the Corpus Christi area and provides a critical service to help ensure the refineries’ productive capabilities—comes as part of HEP’s long-term growth strategy and diversification into new services and markets.
Commissioned in the late 1990s, the Javelina complex is equipped to process between 138-142 MMcfd of off gas it receives from Corpus Christi-area refineries, which it separates into ethane, ethylene, propane, propylene, isobutane, normal butane, butylenes, pentanes, and high-purity hydrogen for distribution as feedstock to other downstream customers, according to recent documents from the US Department of Transportation and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). The complex also returns residue gas recovered from its off-gas feedstock to refineries for reuse as fuel.
Alongside a 29,000-b/d C2 splitter to separate ethylene from ethane recovered at the site, TCEQ documents show the Javelina complex also houses the following major installations:
- C3 splitter.
- C4 reactor.
- C5 hydrodesulfurization unit.
- Demethanizer unit.
- Butylene conversion unit.
- Acetylene unit.
- Sulfurox unit, incinerator.
- Amine regeneration and tail gas treating areas.
- Pressure swing adsorption unit.
- Vapor recovery unit.
