A proposed natural gas processing plant to be built in the West Virginia portion of the Marcellus Shale gained subsidiaries of Chesapeake Energy Corp. and StatoilHydro ASA as customers, MarkWest Liberty Midstream & Resources LLC said Tuesday.

MarkWest Liberty, a partnership between MarkWest Energy Partners LP and the Midstream & Resources Funds, is building the Majorsville cryogenic plant, a 120 MMcf/d facility, in West Virginia’s Panhandle. The plant is scheduled to be completed by the middle of 2010. The facility already has an agreement with Range Resources Corp. to process shale gas (see Daily GPI, July 15, 2008).

Under the latest agreements, MarkWest Liberty would provide processing services for Chesapeake Appalachia LLC and Statoil Natural Gas LLC. Norway’s StatoilHydro last November agreed to pay Chesapeake $3.38 billion to gain a stake in the Marcellus play (see Daily GPI, Nov. 12, 2008).

The Chesapeake and Statoil subsidiaries’ gas is to be gathered by Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. using infrastructure in West Virginia’s Marshall and Wetzel counties, MarkWest Liberty said. Under agreements announced last year, the NiSource Gas Transmission & Storage subsidiary is to deliver the gas to the Majorsville processing plant, which would be adjacent to Columbia’s existing Majorsville compressor station (see Daily GPI, Oct. 22, 2008; Aug. 14, 2008).

The liquids produced at the Majorsville plant are to be piped to MarkWest Liberty’s Houston, PA, processing complex, where the partnership plans to install a 37,000 b/d fractionation facility, as well as transportation, storage and marketing infrastructure to allow it to transport the gas to Northeast markets. MarkWest Energy operates a 22,000 b/d fractionation, storage and marketing facility near Portsmouth, OH.

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