Woodford Shale Gas Liquids Line Expanded, Linked Up

By Jack Money, The Oklahoman

Feb. 5–TULSA — ONEOK Partners LP will connect two natural gas processing plants in the Woodford Shale to a larger natural gas liquids gathering system, officials announced Monday.

The company estimates the two plants — one owned by Antero Resources Midstream Corp. in Coal County and the other being built by Devon Energy Corp. in Hughes County — will have the ability to produce about 25,000 barrels a day of raw natural gas liquids.

The lines, which should be completed by the middle of this year, will carry the product from those plants to another, larger system being built called the Arbuckle Pipeline, which should be finished about a year from now. That line will carry up to 160,000 barrels per day of natural gas liquids to a processing plant at Mont Belvieu, Texas — a key market center for the product, officials said.

Tom Droege, a spokesman for ONEOK Partners, said the 78-mile pipeline expansion from the Arbuckle line to the plants will cost about $25 million.

ONEOK said it is working to keep up with growing production of natural gas from the Woodford Shale.

Devon officials said they were happy for ONEOK’s expansion.

“Devon’s new gas processing plant in southeast Oklahoma that will tie into ONEOK’s announced pipeline extension will be completed later this year with a design capacity of 18,000 barrels of natural gas liquids production per day,” said Terry Ruder, vice president of Devon’s marketing and midstream division, in a news release issued Monday. “ONEOK’s foresight to construct another NGL pipeline from the midcontinent U.S. to the Mont Belvieu market comes at time when it is most needed by producers as they continue their commitment to finding and developing more natural gas resources throughout Oklahoma and Texas.”

ONEOK Partners’ Droege, meanwhile, said the pipeline expansion is just a small part of the system’s planned overall growth in the natural gas liquid arena.

But what is significant about the project announced Monday is that when the Arbuckle pipeline is complete, the extensions will add to the amount of product the pipeline carries, Droege said.

Products from natural gas liquids are used by industry to make all kinds of plastics, he said.

“It is a critical piece of the puzzle in putting together an NGL network in the midcontinent.”

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