Maps – From Producing Basins to Export Facilities, Our New NGL Infrastructure Map Lays It All Out

The NGL business is one of the most logistically complex segments of the energy industry. Mixed NGLs are gathered in producing basins, transported hundreds or even thousands of miles through dedicated Y-grade pipelines, separated at fractionators, shipped through purity-product pipeline networks, consumed by petrochemical plants, delivered to retail markets, and increasingly loaded onto ships bound for destinations around the world.

The challenge is that no single piece of infrastructure tells the whole story. To really make sense of the industry you need to step back and look at the big picture. That’s exactly what our new U.S. Natural Gas Liquids Infrastructure Map provides — a comprehensive view of the U.S. NGL business. It’s a large-format reference that pulls together the major pipelines, fractionators, storage hubs and export facilities that make up the entire NGL value chain. Fair warning, today’s RBN blog is a blatant promotional piece for our new U.S. map.

A Different Kind of Hydrocarbon Business

The U.S. NGL business relies on a highly specialized logistics network that connects production, processing, transportation, storage and end-use markets. The journey begins at gas processing plants, where mixed NGLs are extracted from raw natural gas streams. Those mixed barrels — known as Y-grade — are then transported on dedicated pipeline systems to fractionation centers, where they are separated into individual products such as ethane, propane, normal butane, isobutane and natural gasoline.

From there, each product follows its own path to petrochemical plants, refineries, retail markets, storage facilities or export terminals. Each segment of the system has its own infrastructure, economics and flow patterns. The challenge for analysts and market participants is understanding how all those pieces connect.

What's on the Map?

Our new map (see Figure 1 below) is designed to provide a comprehensive view of major NGL infrastructure across North America.

Included are:

• 92 operational fractionators
• 48 operational Y-grade pipeline systems
• 22 major purity-product pipeline systems
• 14 operational LPG export terminals and several under development
• 7 fractionation projects under development
• 4 major Y-grade expansions and new-build projects

Taken together, these assets represent the backbone of the North American NGL industry. And there’s more! This particular map is unique in that it also includes an optional spreadsheet that details each numbered object displayed on the map. This optional add-on offers customers all the supporting detailed data associated with all of the fractionators, pipelines and export terminals, where available.