Crestwood starts up Bear Den II gas plant

Aug. 14, 2019
Crestwood started commercial operations at its 120-MMcfd Bear Den II cryogenic processing plant in Watford City, ND. Located next to Crestwood’s Bear Den I plant, the Bear Den II plant came online concurrently with the Station 8 facility.

Crestwood Equity Partners LP has started commercial operations at its 120-MMcfd Bear Den II cryogenic processing plant in Watford City, ND.

Located next to Crestwood’s 30-MMcfd Bear Den I plant placed into service in 2018, the Bear Den II plant came online concurrently with the Station 8 compression facility, a 27,500-hp, electric-driven trunk line compression station, the operator said.

As part of the commissioning, Crestwood said it also expanded the Bear Den West and Bear Den Loop pipelines, 36-miles of 20-in., high-pressure lines that connect the Bear Den processing complex to the Arrow gathering system.

During its start-up phase, Bear Den II is currently processing about 65 MMcfd of natual gas with the expectation to ramp up to 100% of Arrow’s gas-gathering volumes during this year’s third quarter.

The Bear Den processing complex has downstream connections to Northern Border Pipeline Co. for residue gas and, upon its completion, will connect to Oneok Inc.’s Elk Creek pipeline for NGL takeaway.

The Arrow gathering and processing system—which consists of about 740 miles of pipe, 150 MMcfd of processing capacity, more than 75,000 hp of compression, and is supported by a 150,000-acre dedication and long-term contracts with WPX Energy, XTO Energy, Bruin E&P Partners, Rimrock Oil & Gas, Enerplus Resources, PetroShale and QEP Resources—gathers crude oil, gas, and produced water on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in the North Dakota counties of McKenzie and Dunn.

As a result of debottlenecking projects, Crestwood said new gathering records are being set on the Arrow system, increasing initial production rates and reservoir productivity.

As of Aug. 14, gathering volumes have exceeded 124,000 b/sd of crude oil, 96 MMcfd of gas, and 84,000 b/sd of produced water.

Crestwood—which has negotiated contract extensions with active producers on the Arrow system resulting in an average remaining term of 9.3 years—said it now expects Arrow producers to connect 110 new wells in 2019.

Start-up of the Bear Den II plant comes as key milestone in Crestwood’s long-term Bakken growth strategy to provide additional services, timely well connects, flow assurance, connectivity to premium downstream markets, and higher net-backs for growing production on the Arrow gathering system, said Robert G. Phillips, chairman, president, and chief executive officer.

Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].