Facilities

Texas will provide $1 million to close a deal with Ascend Performance Materials Texas Inc. to build a propane dehydrogenation (PDH) facility near Houston, Gov. Rick Perry said.

Regency Energy Partners LP is adding to its midstream asset collection a 5,600-mile gas gathering system and about 500 MMcf/d of processing and treating facilities in West Texas and New Mexico for natural gas and natural gas liquids with a deal that gives it Southern Union Gas Services Ltd. (SUGS).

Based on success to date in developing a midstream system in the Utica Shale, The Energy & Minerals Group (EMG) said it plans to spend an additional $450 million for its joint venture (JV) with MarkWest Energy Partners LP.

Iroquois Gas Transmission System said it will pursue development of the Wright Interconnect Project (WIP), an expansion of its existing compression and metering facilities in Wright, NY. Last week Constitution Pipeline Co. said that a finalized route it will propose for a Marcellus pipeline included an agreement with Iroquois to expand the compressor station, which would eliminate the need for Constitution to build a 32,0000-hp compressor facility in Schoharie County, NY (see Shale Daily, Jan. 22). The WIP project will enable delivery of up to 650,000 Dth/d of natural gas from the terminus of the proposed Constitution Pipeline in Schoharie County into both Iroquois and the Tennessee Gas Pipeline under a 15 year capacity lease agreement with Constitution, Iroquois said. WIP is targeted for an in-service date of March 2015 to coincide with the startup of the Constitution Pipeline.

A socially focused investor group has submitted a shareholder resolution aimed at reducing volumes of flared natural gas at oil wellheads. Mercy Investment Services has targeted Oklahoma-based Continental Resources Inc., the leading exploration and production (E&P) operator in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale and Three Forks plays.

Ultra Petroleum Inc.’s Wyoming unit on Friday agreed to sell a liquids pipeline system and gathering facilities and certain associated real property rights in the Pinedale Anticline in Wyoming for $225 million. The buyer is Pinedale Corridor LP, a newly created unit of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust, and the deal is expected to close later this month.

The costs to build, as well as operate, upstream oil and natural gas facilities continued to increase this year and are forecast to jump more in 2013, according to IHS Inc.

The Lone Star West Texas Gateway NGL (natural gas liquids) Pipeline has entered service, transporting NGLs from the Permian and Delaware basins in West Texas to Mont Belvieu, TX, project partners Energy Transfer Partners LP (ETP) and Regency Energy Partners LP said Tuesday.

A bill signed by President Obama Tuesday allows for the construction and operation of natural gas pipeline facilities in the New York portion of the Gateway National Recreation Center, a 26,600-acre National Recreation Area in the Port of New York and New Jersey. HR 2606, which was introduced last year by three congressman representing Brooklyn and Queens — Republicans Michael Grimm and Robert Turner, and Democrat Gregory Meeks — was approved by the House and Senate earlier this year. The legislation will allow a new pipeline to be built off of an existing Williams pipeline to replace a 40-60 year old pipe and bring natural gas from New Jersey to Long Island. The pipeline will pass under Jacob Riis Park in the Rockaways portion of Queens and under Jamaica Bay to a new meter and regulator station on Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. The project would generate an estimated $265 million on construction activity and 300 construction jobs, according to Grimm.