Copano Energy LLC plans to expand the processing capacity of its Houston Central plant in Colorado County, TX, to accommodate increased demand from producers in the Eagle Ford Shale. Houston-based Copano plans to build a 400,000 Mcf/d cryogenic processing plant, bringing the facility’s total processing capacity to 1.1 Bcf/d. The new plant is estimated to cost $145 million and could be in service by early 2013. Copano, a midstream natural gas company with operations in four states, owns assets including nine processing plants with more than 1 Bcf/d of combined processing capacity and 22,000 b/d of fractionation capacity.

A group of investors, including Maju Investments (Mauritius) Pte Ltd., a unit of Singapore-based Temasek Holdings Ltd.; and Hong Kong-based RRJ Capital, has agreed to buy Frac Tech Holdings LLC, the majority shareholder of Cisco, TX-based Frac Tech Services LLC (Frac Tech). The consortium will own 70% of Frac Tech while Chesapeake Energy Corp. will receive a cash distribution and increase its ownership to 30% from its current 26% (see Shale Daily, Feb. 8; Dec. 17, 2010). Frac Tech is the fourth largest provider of well stimulation services to the U.S. exploration and production industry, with about 1.1 million hp currently in service and plans for 1.6 million hp in service by the end of 2011. The investor group has received a $1.7 billion debt financing commitment. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter and is subject to customary conditions.