Despite sagging oil and natural gas liquids (NGL) prices, investments in expanding midstream infrastructure continue in the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford. In the past several weeks, Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) said its Lone Star NGL unit will build a 533-mile NGL pipeline from the Permian to the Mont Belvieu, TX fractionation hub, and the company announced plans for a 200 MMcf/d natural gas processing plant along its Rich Eagle Ford Mainline natural gas pipeline (and another in the Eaglebine/Eagle Ford East). Today we continue our company-by-company look at midstream infrastructure development in the Permian and Eagle Ford with a focus on Energy Transfer.
The recent Permian and Eagle Ford infrastructure projects unveiled by ETP and Regency Energy Partners (a company controlled by ETP) are the latest in a series of efforts by the Energy Transfer family of publicly traded master limited partnerships (MLPs – see Masters of the Midstream). Energy Transfer started in 1995 as a small intrastate natural gas pipeline operator and is now a giant whose four MLPs—ETP, Regency, Energy Transfer Equity (owner of ETP and Regency’s general partners), and Sunoco Logistics Partners (whose general partner is owned by ETP—yes, we know, it’s complicated)--own more than 70,000 miles of gas, NGL, refined products and crude oil pipelines. The Energy Transfer family’s first big step into NGLs came in 2011, when a 70-30 joint venture of ETP and Regency acquired Louis Dreyfus’s NGL storage, fractionation and transportation business; in 2012, ETP acquired Sunoco Logistics Partners (SXL), which is becoming an NGL infrastructure powerhouse of its own.
As we said in Episode 1 of our series, NGL production in the liquids-rich Permian and Eagle Ford has been rising even more quickly than had been predicted a year or two ago. That’s put renewed pressure on midstream companies to further increase the gas processing and NGL take-away capacity from the two prolific “triple-plays”—which are favored by producers for their ability to generate large volumes of crude oil and natural gas as well as NGLs. In Episode 2, we began our company-by-company look at NGL-related assets by reviewing Enterprise Products Partners’ (EPD) infrastructure in the Permian, and in Episode 3 we discussed EPD’s assets in the Eagle Ford and DCP Midstream’s assets in the Permian and the Eagle Ford. As has been our practice, we’ll start with Energy Transfer’s Permian assets, and follow up with its assets in the Eagle Ford, though as you’ll see, single maps will be used to show natural gas processing plants, fractionators and pipelines in both plays.
Energy Transfer
As Figure #1 shows, Regency (also known as RGP) owns nine of the 10 natural gas processing plants in the Permian that are held by members of the Energy Transfer family; the 10th plant—the recently completed Rebel facility—is owned by ETP. Regency’s nine plants (orange triangles in Figure #1) have a combined processing capacity of 940 MMcf/d, the most recent addition being a 200 MMcf/d plant at Red Bluff, which came online in July 2013. Regency plans to begin commercial operation of a 200 MMcf/d plant now under construction at Mi Vida in the second quarter of 2015 and to bring online another 200 MMcf/d plant there in the third quarter of 2015, thereby increasing Regency’s total processing capacity in the Permian to 1.3 Bcf/d. (A third new 200 MMcf/d processing plant in the Permian is under development by Regency—the site at which it will be built has not been identified yet.) ETP’s Rebel processing plant (the only blue triangle in the Permian in Figure #1) came online in July 2014 and is expected to reach its full capacity of 180 MMcf/d by the third quarter of 2015. ETP has said it soon expects to announce an expansion at Rebel. Several gas processing plants owned by others in the Permian (and between the Permian and Mont Belvieu) are connected to ETP and Regency’s jointly owned Lone Star West Texas NGL Pipeline (red line), which we will get to next. These plants are depicted as white triangles. (ETP’s 700 MMcf/d Godley gas processing complex in the Barnett Shale is also connected to this pipeline near its half-way point).
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About the song
"I'll Take You There" was written by Alvertis Isbell (Al Bell) and recorded by The Staple Singers at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Sheffield, AL, in late 1971. Bell wrote the song after attending the funeral of his little brother. The two-chord song is based on a Jamaican reggae instrumental called "The Liquidator," by the Harry J. Allstars. "I'll Take You There" appears as the fourth song on The Staple Singers' 12th studio album, Be Attitude: Respect Yourself. It was released as a single in February 1972, and went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart. Charted cover versions of the song have been done by BeBe & CeCe Winans and General Public. Salt-N-Papa sampled the song in their 1991 hit, "Let's Talk About Sex." Personnel on the record were: Mavis Staples (lead and backing vocals), Roger Hawkins (drums), David Hood (bass), Eddie Hinton (lead guitar), Jimmy Johnson, Raymond Bank (guitars), Barry Beckett (Wurlitzer electric piano), and Terry Manning (harmonica). Al Bell produced the song, which was mixed at Ardent Studios in Memphis, TN, with Terry Manning engineering. The horns and strings were arranged by Johnny Allen and recorded at Artie Fields Recording Studios in Detroit, MI.
Be Attitude: Respect Yourself was recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Sheffield, AL, with Al Bell producing. In addition to "I'll Take You There,” the album produced a second hit with "Respect Yourself." Released in February 1972, the album went to #19 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart, and #3 on the Top Soul Albums chart.
The Staple Singers were an American gospel, soul, and rhythm and blues group formed in Chicago by Pops Staples and his children, Cleotha, Pervis, Yvonne, and Mavis. They released 24 studio albums and 27 singles. They are members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Both Pops Staples and Mavis Staples went on to have successful solo careers. Pops Staples died in 2000, Cleotha in 2013, and Yvonne in 2018. Mavis Staples continues to record and tour, and has five concert dates scheduled in the U.S. starting at the end of September of this year.
