A trio of recently completed Oneok Partners LP projects will enhance North Dakota’s processing of natural gas and help reduce flaring in the state, according to Gov. Jack Dalrymple.

“We are making significant progress in the capturing and processing of natural gas, and Oneok Partners is playing a big role in that ongoing effort,” Dalrymple said at grand opening ceremonies held for Oneok’s Stateline II natural gas processing plant and two pipeline projects in Williston, ND, Wednesday. “With these major projects completed, we are able to further reduce flaring at oil well sites, decrease traffic congestion and impacts to our roads, and add value to our energy resources.”

Oneok completed the Bakken NGL Pipeline, Stateline II gas processing facility and a new ethane header pipeline and the projects all entered service last month (see Shale Daily, April 12). The projects are part of a growth program worth roughly $5 billion.

The Bakken NGL Pipeline transports unfractionated natural gas liquids (NGL) from the Bakken Shale and Three Forks formations in the Williston Basin to the partnership’s 50%-owned Overland Pass Pipeline, a 760-mile NGL pipeline from southern Wyoming to Conway, KS. The 600-mile pipeline has capacity to transport 60,000 b/d.

Stateline II is in western Williams County, ND, and has capacity of 100 MMcf/d. It is the third gas processing facility that Oneok Partners has completed in the Williston Basin since late 2011, joining the Garden Creek and Stateline I plants.

Oneok is constructing a 270-mile gathering system, which is expected to be fully operational in the third quarter of this year, that would transfer natural gas from well sites in Divide County for processing at the Stateline I and Stateline II plants.

The partnership has said it has a $2 billion-plus backlog of unannounced growth projects that it continues to evaluate. It said last year it would spend between $980 million and $1.1 billion by 2014 on a slate of gas and midstream projects in Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota (see Shale Daily, July 27, 2012).

There has been a flurry of activity to curb flaring in western North Dakota (see Shale Daily, April 17; March 27; March 20). Last month, Dalrymple signed into law a measure offering tax breaks to oil and natural gas operators as an incentive to cut flaring of associated gas at the wellhead on oil wells (see Shale Daily, May 1). Under the legislation, which will be effective July 1, producers building and expanding systems to process or compress sufficient natural gas at the wellhead would be exempt from paying taxes on those investments.