Enterprise Product Partners LP has begun service at the Mentone 3 cryogenic natural gas processing plant in West Texas, one of several steps midstream companies are taking this year to add sorely needed takeaway capacity from the Permian Basin.

Enterprise’s third processing plant in the Permian’s Delaware sub-basin has a nameplate capacity of 300 MMcf/d and is able to extract more than 40,000 b/d of natural gas liquids (NGL). The Houston-based company also plans to build a similar West Texas plant, Mentone West 2, in Loving County by mid-2026. 

Together with a fourth plant, Mentone West 1, expected to be completed later this year, Enterprise would be able by 2026 to process 2.8 Bcf/d and extract 370,000 b/d of NGLs in the Delaware.

“We are so tight right now” on...