Atlas Pipeline Partners LP (APL) has brought online its Stonewall cryogenic gas processing plant in the Arkoma section of the Woodford Shale, which will add capacity to APL’s SouthOK system. The partnership is also accelerating plans to potentially increase the capacity at Stonewall, given increasing activity by Arkoma Basin and South Central Oklahoma Oil Province producers (see Shale Daily, May 1). Stonewall has an initial capacity of 120 MMcf/d. The plant was constructed under the Centrahoma joint venture with MarkWest Energy Partners, in which APL owns 60%. Due to the increase in activity in southern Oklahoma, the APL plans to accelerate the planned 80 MMcf/d expansion of Stonewall, bringing capacity to 200 MMcf/d. The expansion will add refrigeration and compression at the plant and will result in total gross processing capacity of 580 MMcf/d on the partnership’s SouthOK system.

Encana Corp. expects to raise up to $785 million by spinning off PrairieSky Royalty Ltd., an oil and gas unit that holds 5.2 million acres extending from Alberta to the U.S. border. The spinoff, in the works since 2013, was announced in April; the offering is expected to launch by the end of May (see Shale Daily, April 15). Encana, which would retain a 75% stake, plans to sell 32.5 million shares of stock for around $21.00-24.00/share. PrairieSky isn’t designed to conduct oil and gas operations, but it would farm out exploration, development and production to third parties. At the end of 2013, Encana had about 300 paying lessees on the offering, including ConocoPhillips, Husky Energy Inc. and China’s Sinopec, which together were producing 14,275 boe/d. PrairieSky’s undeveloped land could be worth more than $1.3 billion. In its prospectus, Encana said it viewed as “understated” the value of the assets because of the multiple leases for different underground formations on the same land.

The board of of directors ofNational Oilwell Varco Inc. (NOV) has given final approval to spin off the distribution arm as an independent, publicly traded company to be known as NOW Inc. and headquartered in Houston. Each NOV shareholder of record as of May 22 would receive one NOW share for every four shares NOV. NOV is retaining no ownership interest. Approval is expected soon to list on the New York Stock Exchange as DNOW. During 1Q2014, the distribution and transmission segment generated revenues of $1.28 billion, up 2% sequentially and 4% year/year (see Shale Daily, April 28).