Enterprise Products Partners LP and its joint venture partners, Shell Gas Transmission LLC (Shell) and Marathon Gas Transmission Inc. Wednesday announced plans to provide a comprehensive package of gathering, transportation, processing and exchange services to BHP Billiton for deepwater natural gas production from the Southern Green Canyon area of the central Gulf of Mexico. The onshore Neptune processing plant will be expanded to handle the additional volumes.

The agreements include a life of lease dedication from BHP Billiton for its share of reserves in the Mad Dog and Atlantis developments in the Southern Green Canyon area.

“We are pleased to provide this integrated package of services to BHP Billiton and look forward to a long-term relationship of providing access for their production from discoveries in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico to the highest value natural gas and natural gas liquids markets on the U.S. Gulf Coast,” stated O.S. “Dub” Andras, Enterprise’s CEO.

Manta Ray Offshore Gathering Co. LLC and Nautilus Pipeline Co. LLC have executed agreements with BHP Billiton to provide natural gas gathering and transportation services. Upon receipt of gas from the Cleopatra Gas Gathering System at Ship Shoal 332, Manta Ray will transport the gas to Ship Shoal 207 where it will be delivered into the Nautilus pipeline.

Nautilus will transport the gas to the Neptune gas processing plant, located in St. Mary Parish, LA. Enterprise owns a 25.67% equity interest in both Manta Ray and Nautilus. Shell and Marathon own a 50% and 24.33% interest, respectively, in each of the two companies. Shell is the physical operator of Manta Ray and Marathon is the physical operator of Nautilus. Volumes produced by Shell E&P already are flowing through the system.

Neptune plant owners Enterprise (66%) and Marathon (34%) have executed an agreement with BHP Billiton to process its natural gas to remove gas liquids (NGL) at the Neptune plant. Currently, natural gas deliveries to Neptune are near the plant’s capacity and given the expected growth in production from the Southern Green Canyon projects and future deepwater developments, the plant is being expanded by 115% to a processing capacity of 650 MMcf/d.

“The expansion of our Neptune plant, which is expected to be completed in November 2003, will provide capacity to extract an additional 25,000 b/d of NGL that will flow into our pipelines and fractionators where we will provide valuable fee-based services,” Andras continued.

After being processed at the Neptune plant, the natural gas will be redelivered into the Nautilus hub, operated by Marathon, gives producers access to the major consuming markets in the eastern and central United States, as well as to growing markets within Louisiana. The hub currently has seven interconnects with intrastate and interstate natural gas pipelines. Two interconnects are with Enterprise affiliates, Acadian Gas Pipeline and Cypress Gas Pipeline, which serve the Louisiana intrastate market.

Enterprise Products Partners LP is the second largest publicly traded, midstream energy partnership with an enterprise value of $6.5 billion.

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