Woodford Shale natural gas producers will soon have easier access to markets as OGE Energy Corp. subsidiary Enogex Inc. has completed construction on the first phase — 22 miles — of a new 30-mile pipeline that will connect the company’s Hughes, Coal and Pittsburgh county gathering system with the 30-inch diameter Enogex mainline to Bennington, OK, and the 24-inch Enogex mainline to Wilburton, OK.

The company said it has recently committed approximately $50 million to expansions in this area and expects its latest expansion to be in service by 3Q2008. Enogex added that it is continuing to develop other projects in the area.

The gathering project creates additional gathering capacity of 125 MMcf/d for customers desiring low-pressure services with the potential to double this amount with incremental compression investments. The pipeline will be complemented by approximately 20,000 hp of compression. Once complete, Woodford Shale-area producers will have access to 350-500 MMcf/d of existing take-away capacity on Enogex’s mainline pipeline.

“Our customers expect secure gas takeaway and reliable operations,” said Keith Mitchell, senior vice president of Enogex. “We have recently made a significant investment in gathering infrastructure, providing increased access to our existing transmission system that will help us serve our customers active in the Woodford Shale area of eastern Oklahoma. We are committed to providing capacity to gather and move gas for our customers in the Woodford Shale to attractive markets both on our system and on the recently announced Midcontinent Express Pipeline and Gulf Cross[ing] Pipeline projects connecting to our Bennington Station.”

Midcontinent Express Pipeline, a 50/50 joint venture of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP and Energy Transfer Partners LLC, is expected to open the transportation of gas from the various shales in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma through a $1.27 billion, 500-mile transmission system (see Daily GPI, Oct. 11, 2007).

Gulf Crossing Pipeline Co. LLC, a subsidiary of Boardwalk Pipeline Partners LP, filed applications last summer to build a major 353.2-mile pipeline to transport gas from supply regions in Texas and Oklahoma to the Perryville Hub in northeast Louisiana (see Daily GPI, June 28, 2007).

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