(Source: Business Wire)
Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (NYSE:EPD) today announced plans to build a new 75,000 barrels per day (BPD) natural gas liquid (NGL) fractionator at its Mont Belvieu, Texas complex that will provide the partnership with additional capacity to better accommodate growing NGL volumes from producing areas in the Rockies, the Barnett Shale and the emerging Eagle Ford Shale play in South Texas. This expansion, which is supported by long-term contracts, will be based on the design of the partnership's 75,000 BPD Hobbs fractionator in Gaines County, Texas that began service in August 2007. When completed, the project will increase Enterprise's NGL fractionation capacity at Mont Belvieu to approximately 300,000 BPD and net system-wide capacity to approximately 600,000 BPD.
"Over the past three years, our NGL fractionation volumes have increased by 46 percent to a record 449,000 barrels per day in the second quarter of 2009," said Executive Vice President A.J. "Jim" Teague, chief commercial officer for Enterprise. "Our NGL fractionators are operating at or near their practical limits and we have consistently contracted with third party fractionators for additional capacity. With the expected growth in NGL production and demand for NGLs by the petrochemical industry, we have seen strong demand for NGL fractionation, storage and distribution services. Our Mont Belvieu facility, the largest NGL fractionation and storage complex in the world, is uniquely positioned to provide customers with the services and flexibility to help ensure operational reliability and attractive market access for their feedstocks and products."
Teague added, "As an indication of this growing demand for fractionation services, consider that our Hobbs facility in West Texas, which began service in the third quarter of 2007, has been operating at capacity since the first quarter of 2008. In fact, we have even been utilizing our fractionators in Louisiana to offload volumes that exceeded our available capacity at Mont Belvieu in order to satisfy customer demands."
"We believe our integrated NGL system coupled with this investment in additional fractionation capacity will help differentiate Enterprise from other midstream companies as we compete to provide natural gas and NGL midstream services for producers in the Eagle Ford Shale play. To date, the natural gas discoveries in the Eagle Ford have generally been rich in NGLs.
