On Monday May 25 Pembina Pipeline Corporation announced it is proceeding with the Heartland Extraction Plant, an upsized and renamed evolution of the Yellowhead Extraction Plant first proposed in early 2025.
The Heartland Extraction Plant (HEP) is to be a new 750 MMcf/d straddle plant on Pembina lands near Fort Saskatchewan, AB, that will extract ethane-plus (C2+) NGLs from the Yellowhead Pipeline, a new natural gas pipeline owned by a subsidiary of ATCO Ltd. that is expected to begin construction this year and deliver gas from Northwest Alberta to the Fort Saskatchewan area. HEP is expected to begin supplying Dow Chemical with ethane in 2029, ramping up to 22.5 Mb/d of ethane by the end of 2030. Pembina will retain, extract, and market the propane-plus NGLs related to this project (up to 9.5 Mb/d C3+). HEP is expected to cost CAD$570 MM.
Prior to Monday’s announcement, the straddle plant’s proposed design was to have a capacity of up to 500 MMcf/d and would extract up to about 25 Mb/d of C2+ from the gas stream. Pembina’s ethane supply agreement with Dow has also been upsized: Pembina is now to provide Dow with 57.5 Mb/d of ethane (22.5 Mb/d from HEP, 35 Mb/d from Pembina’s existing portfolio), compared to the original agreement for 50 Mb/d.
The Yellowhead Pipeline is to be a 1.0-1.1 Bcf/d, high-pressure, approximately 230-km (~143-mile) natural gas pipeline running from the Peers/Edson area to Fort Saskatchewan. The project is awaiting Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) approval (expected in Q3 2026), and ATCO corporate approval, and is currently estimated to cost CAD$2.9 billion. Pembina has sole extraction rights on the Yellowhead Pipeline.
