Crude-oil-focused production growth in the Permian is generating increasing volumes of associated gas that need to be processed and mixed NGLs that need to be piped to Mont Belvieu, fractionated and exported. All that suggests the need for still more infrastructure — processing plants, NGL pipelines, fractionators and export facilities — and Enterprise Products Partners, a top-tier NGL midstreamer, recently laid out a multibillion-dollar plan to help Permian producers keep pace. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the new set of projects Enterprise has in the works.
We recently concluded a seven-part series on the handful of large U.S. midstream companies with the sequential assets — the NGL networks — capable of taking NGL molecules from wellheads in the Permian and other liquids-rich plays to the ultimate U.S. recipients of NGL purity products, be they petrochemical plants, refineries, propane distributors, or NGL export terminals. And wouldn’t you know it, Enterprise followed up our series with a blockbuster announcement of perhaps the most comprehensive set of new NGL-related infrastructure projects in years.
NGL Voyager offers subscribers a comprehensive market analysis of natural gas liquids exports which are driven by fundamentals, and combined with the latest industry buzz. The report examines U.S. export trends for propane, butane and ethane, and includes port of origin, destination and volume.
Before we begin our discussion of those projects and their significance, we should note it took two blogs in our recent NGL networks series to describe everything that Enterprise already had going on regarding NGLs. In the first of those two blogs, we discussed the company’s more than 10 Bcf/d of net gas-processing capacity, about three-quarters of which is located in the Permian, the Eagle Ford, the Piceance and the Green River production areas (the latter in Colorado and Wyoming, respectively). We also looked at the set of Enterprise pipelines that move mixed NGLs (aka Y-grade) from processing plants to Mont Belvieu, including the Shin Oak Pipeline (67% owned by Enterprise) and the Chaparral Pipeline system, both of which run from the Permian. (More on those in a moment.). And we cataloged the company’s massive NGL storage and fractionation complex in Mont Belvieu (130 MMbbl of space in underground salt caverns and 1.1 MMb/d of fractionation capacity).
In our second blog on Enterprise we examined the balance of the company’s NGL- and petchem-related network, which includes pipelines that distribute purity products to domestic customers and export terminals; isomerization units that make isobutane from normal butane and propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plants that convert propane to propylene; plants that produce octane-enhancing isobutylene from isobutane and methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) from isobutylene; pipelines that move ethylene produced by area steam crackers and Enterprise’s Morgan’s Point export terminal; and finally, the company’s Enterprise Hydrocarbons Terminal (EHT) and Morgan’s Point itself. As we put it, “Enterprise’s NGL value chain extends beyond purity products to petrochemical and fuel commodities (isobutylene, MTBE, ethylene and propylene) derived from purity products.” In other words, to say it’s a soup-to-nuts operation would be an understatement.
One more thing: in last month’s OMG, we discussed the ongoing build-out of Permian gas processing capacity that is an essential precursor to production growth in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico. There, we noted that Enterprise alone was planning three 300-MMcf/d processing plants — the Leonidas plant in the Midland Basin (due in service in Q1 2024) and, in the Delaware Basin, Mentone 2 (now operational) and Mentone 3 (also due online in Q1 2024).
Figure 1. Selected Enterprise NGL-Related Assets. Sources: Enterprise, RBN
Join Backstage Pass to Read Full Article
About the song
“Get Ready” was written by Smokey Robinson and appears as the fourth song on side one of The Temptations’ fourth studio album, Gettin’ Ready. The song was recorded in Detroit at Hitsville USA in Studio A during December 1965. The Smokey Robinson-produced song was released as a single in February 1966, a few months prior to the album being released. It went to #1 on the Billboard Rhythm & Blues chart and #29 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Personnel on the recording were: Eddie Kendricks (lead vocals), Melvin Franklin (lead vocals), David Ruffin, Melvin Franklin, Paul Williams and Otis Williams (background vocals). Instrumental accompaniment was provided by Motown’s house band, The Funk Brothers. The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, and Nancy Sinatra would later cover the song, but only fellow Motown artists Rare Earth would have a hit with the song again in 1970. Their version went to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #20 on the Rhythm & Blues chart.
Gettin’ Ready was released in June 1966, where it went to #12 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. Two charting singles were released from the album, the aforementioned “Get Ready” and “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.” This album marks the transition from Smokey Robinson being The Temptations’ producer to having Norman Whitfield taking over the role.
The Temptations are an American rhythm and blues/soul music vocal group formed in Detroit in 1960. The “classic 5” version of the group included David Ruffin, Eddie Kendricks, Melvin Franklin, Paul Williams and Otis Williams, who were responsible for the majority of their hits in the 1960s. Ruffin was replaced by Dennis Edwards in 1968, and the group continued to have hits into the ’70s, such as psychedelic soul masterpieces “Cloud Nine,” “Psychedelic Shack” and “Ball of Confusion.” The group has released 43 studio albums, four live albums, 15 compilation albums, three soundtrack albums and 109 singles to date. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989 and were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999. In 2013, the group received a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award and was inducted into the R&B Music Hall of Fame. Twenty-four members have passed through the ranks of The Temptations over the years. Original member Otis Williams still tours with a version of The Temptations to this day.
