Crosstex Energy plans to build an $80 million natural gas processing facility near its midstream assets in the Barnett Shale in Hood County, TX, the company said Monday.

The 200 MMcf/d Bear Creek facility would increase the company’s total processing capacity in the Barnett Shale to 485 MMcf/d. Crosstex said it expects the facility to become operational in the third quarter of 2009. Crosstex currently operates three gas processing plants — the 200 MMcf/d Silver Creek cryogenic processing plant, the 55 MMcf/d Azle cryogenic processing plant and the 30 MMcf/d Goforth processing plant — in the Barnett Shale region.

“The new Bear Creek facility will allow us to optimize the performance of our North Texas assets,” said CEO Barry E. Davis. “The fact that we are beginning to construct this new plant on the heels of starting up the Silver Creek processing plant in 2007 clearly shows that we expect our volumes in the Barnett Shale to grow substantially.”

Dallas-based Crosstex operates more than 5,000 miles of pipeline, 12 processing plants, four fractionators and approximately 190 natural gas amine-treating plants and dew point control plants. Crosstex currently provides services for more than 3.5 Bcf/d.

Last year Crosstex announced that it was building a 29-mile natural gas pipeline in the Dallas-Fort Worth, TX, area to provide greater takeaway capacity to gas producers in the prolific Barnett Shale formation (see Daily GPI, Aug. 31, 2007). In 2006 Crosstex said it would expand its North Texas Pipeline to move gas from the Barnett Shale to the Perryville Hub in North Louisiana (see Daily GPI, Nov. 20, 2006).

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