Natural Gas Processing
At the core of our natural gas processing business are 25 processing plants located in Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Texas and Wyoming. Our natural gas processing facilities can be characterized as two distinct types: (i) straddle plants situated on mainline natural gas pipelines owned either by us or by third parties or (ii) field plants that process natural gas from gathering pipelines. We operate the Meeker, Pioneer, Toca, Chaco, North Terrebonne, Calumet, Neptune, Burns Point and Carlsbad plants and all of the Texas facilities.
Natural gas produced at the wellhead especially in association with crude oil contains varying amounts of NGLs. This “rich” natural gas in its raw form is usually not acceptable for transportation in the nation’s major natural gas pipeline systems or for commercial use as a fuel. Natural gas processing plants remove the NGLs from the natural gas stream, enabling the natural gas to meet transmission pipeline and commercial quality specifications. In addition, on an energy equivalent basis, NGLs generally have a greater economic value as a raw material for petrochemical and motor gasoline production than their value as components of the natural gas stream. After extraction, we typically transport the mixed NGLs to a centralized facility for fractionation into purity NGL products such as ethane, propane, normal butane, isobutane and natural gasoline. The purity NGL products can then be used in our NGL marketing activities to meet contractual requirements or sold on spot and forward markets.
Our NGL marketing activities generate revenues from the sale and delivery of NGLs obtained through our processing activities and purchases from third parties on the open market. These sales contracts may also include forward product sales contracts. In general, the sales prices referenced in these contracts are market-related and can include pricing differentials for such factors as delivery location.
Gas Processing Facility |
Company Ownership Interest in Facility |
Net Gas Processing Capacity (Bcf/d) (1) |
Total Gas Processing Capacity (Bcf/d) |
Location (s) |
Meeker, CO(2) |
100% |
1.40 |
1.40 |
Colorado |
Pioneer, WY (3) |
100% |
1.30 |
1.30 |
Wyoming |
Toca |
67.4% |
0.70 |
1.10 |
Louisiana |
Chaco |
100% |
0.65 |
0.65 |
New Mexico |
North Terrebonne |
52.5% |
0.63 |
1.30 |
Louisiana |
Calumet |
32.7% |
0.51 |
1.60 |
Louisiana |
Neptune |
66.0% |
0.43 |
0.65 |
Louisiana |
Pascagoula |
40% |
0.40 |
1.50 |
Mississippi |
Yscloskey |
14.6% |
0.34 |
1.85 |
Louisiana |
Thompsonville |
100% |
0.30 |
0.30 |
Texas |
Shoup |
100% |
0.29 |
0.29 |
Texas |
Gilmore |
100% |
0.26 |
0.26 |
Texas |
Armstrong |
100% |
0.25 |
0.25 |
Texas |
Others (10 facilities) (4) |
Various (5) |
1.19 |
2.85 |
Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana |
Total Processing Capacities |
|
8.65 |
15.30 |
|
(1) The approximate net natural gas processing capacity does not necessarily correspond to our ownership interest in each facility.
(2) We commenced natural gas processing operations at our Meeker facility in October 2007 and began processing natural gas at Meeker II in first quarter 2009. Gas processing capacity is currently approximately 1.4 Bcf/d at the Meeker complex.
(3) The Pioneer natural gas processing facility is comprised of a new cryogenic processing facility having 0.7 Bcf/d of processing capacity, which became operational in February 2008, and a silica gel natural gas processing facility with a processing capacity of 0.6 Bcf/d.
(4) Our other natural gas processing facilities include our Venice, Sea Robin and Burns Point facilities located in Louisiana; Indian Basin and Carlsbad facilities located in New Mexico; and San Martin, Delmita, Sonora, Shilling and Indian Springs facilities located in Texas.
(5)Our ownership in these facilities ranges from 13.1% to 100%.