Mitchell Energy & Development Corp., which two weeks agoannounced it was increasing its capital budget nearly $50 millionmore this year, said it has completed two system expansion projectsin North Texas, boosting both natural gas sales and gas liquidsproduction.

The Woodlands, TX-based company completed one project thatinvolved looping 13.5 miles of a main gathering line that servesthe Bridgeport processing plant. It also added 3,000 HP ofcompression. Now, daily gathering capacity along the line hasincreased by more than 40 MMcf. A week after the project wascompleted, gross natural gas production jumped nearly 30 MMcf/d.NGL production at the plant increased by nearly 1,000 barrels.

Some of the incremental gas volume is being processed at twonearby plants until the Bridgeport facility expansion is completed.When done, the facility will add another 100 MMcf/d.

The second system expansion, which involved looping a gatheringline and adding 1,200 HP of compression, doubled the capacity of afield gas sales outlet to 80 MMcf/d. The outlet allows sales ofrelatively dry gas production from the southeastern flank of theBarnett shale play directly into the intrastate market. Gas salesthrough this outlet have grown to about 75 MMcf/d since it began ayear ago (see Daily GPI, July 21).

“These projects will help us keep up with the rapidly increasinggas production from the Barnett shale and enable us to fully loadthe expanded Bridgeport plant by the end of next year’s firstquarter,” said Mitchell gas services division president Allen T.Tarbutton. He said that total daily company gas sales are about 340MMcf, up 11% from 306 MMcf reported in July, and “on target” forvolume growth of about 20% this year.

Tarbutton said that total NGL production already has increasedto more than 53,000 b/d, up from 51,000 b/d reported in July. Whenit’s fully loaded, the Bridgeport plant expansion will add another7,000 b/d.

In late August, Mitchell announced it had increased its capitalbudget to $302 million, up from $254 million it had set in June.Nearly $33 million of the increase was allocated to fielddevelopment to drill 25 more development wells, and to recompleteor refracture an additional 128 existing wells. The rest of themoney was earmarked for expanding and upgrading its midstreaminfrastructure in North Texas to handle the company’s rapidlyexpanding gas production.

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