Woodford

Midcontinent Express Pipeline’s (MEP) access to high-growth gas shale basins, such as the Barnett, Bossier, Woodford and Haynesville, plus long-term, fixed-fee capacity reservation contracts give the 505-mile pipeline a “stable outlook,” according to Fitch Ratings.

Midcontinent Express Pipeline’s (MEP) access to high-growth gas shale basins, such as the Barnett, Bossier, Woodford and Haynesville, plus long-term, fixed-fee capacity reservation contracts give the 505-mile pipeline a “stable outlook,” according to Fitch Ratings.

As new supplies of gas from the Barnett Shale and Bossier Sands in Texas, the Haynesville Shale in northwest Louisiana, the Woodford Shale in southeastern Oklahoma and the Fayetteville Shale in northeast Arkansas continue to ramp up, Perryville, located in northeastern Louisiana, finds itself ideally situated as a gathering place to store and move the gas to markets in the Midwest, Northeast and Southeast.

Oneok Partners LP is drawing up plans to build a natural gas liquids (NGL) gathering pipeline to connect two gas processing plants in the Woodford Shale play in southeast Oklahoma to the partnership’s Midcontinent gathering system. These two plants would have the ability to produce 25,000 bbl/d of raw NGL. The 78-mile pipeline extension would transport raw NGL from a gas processing plant being built by Devon Energy Corp. in Hughes County, OK, and a recently constructed gas processing plant owned by Antero Resources Midstream Corp. in Coal County, OK. The $25 million extension of six- and eight-inch diameter pipeline is scheduled for completion in 2Q2008. Oneok Partner’s Arbuckle Pipeline, which is expected to be complete by early 2009, is designed to initially transport up to 160,000 bbl/d of raw NGL (see NGI, Oct. 15, 2007). Originating from the partnership’s existing Midcontinent NGL network in Oklahoma, the 440-mile pipeline would pass through the Barnett Shale area and connect with the existing fractionation facility at Mont Belvieu and other Gulf Coast-area fractionators.

The Barnett Shale in the Fort Worth Basin may be the most hyped natural gas shale area of North America, but at least one analyst is suggesting that the Canadian Maritimes abundant rock could be the next new thing.