Enterprise Products Partners LP has started operations at a cryogenic natural gas processing plant considered “integral” to helping facilitate continued growth of natural gas production from the Cotton Valley and Haynesville formations in East Texas and Louisiana.

The Bulldog processing plant in Panola County, TX, has the capability to process 200 MMcf/d of natural gas and extract up to 12,000 b/d of natural gas liquids (NGL). Combined with Enterprise’s existing Panola cryogenic facility, Bulldog would give the company the capacity to process a total of 320 MMcf/d and produce in excess of 18,000 b/d of NGL within the region.

Already running near 100% of its capacity, the plant is a “strategic complement” to the Enterprise value chain as NGL produced at the plant will be transported on the Panola Pipeline to Mont Belvieu, TX, for fractionation services.

Residue gas from the tailgate of the Bulldog plant would have connectivity with Enterprise’s North Texas Intrastate pipeline system, along with other major pipelines and markets in the East Texas-Carthage area. In addition, the Bulldog plant fully integrates Enterprise’s existing Fairplay gathering system with the BTA gathering system, which was acquired in 2017.

“The addition of this new natural gas processing plant demonstrates Enterprise’s commitment to investing in the world-class natural gas shale in East Texas and Louisiana,” said Enterprise’s CEO of the general partner. “The Bulldog facility, along with other growth projects under construction in the region, aggregates natural gas on our system and creates an opportunity for future expansion of our natural gas value chain from East Texas to the Gulf Coast. This project is also an example of our success in leveraging opportunistic, strategic acquisitions.”

In its latest Drilling Productivity Report, the Energy Information Administration said that oil production in the Haynesville was expected to remain flat in February at around 40,000 b/d, while natural gas production was expected to be marginally higher month/month. Six drilled but uncompleted wells were added in the shale play in December, bringing the number up to 214.

Enterprise earlier this week started commercial operations at another gas processing plant in the more active Permian Basin. The Mentone plant, the seventh in the Delaware sub-basin, has the capacity to process 300 MMcf/d of natural gas and extract more than 40,000 b/d of NGL. The latest addition brings total capacity in the Permian to more than 1.6 Bcf/d of natural gas processing and more than 250,000 b/d of NGL extraction.

The Houston-based midstreamer is scheduled to release its 4Q2019 earnings on Thursday (Jan. 30).