Over the past two years, MPLX has been ramping up its midstream development activity in the Lone Star State, or more specifically in the “Permian-to-Gulf” market, where it’s been building or buying into gathering systems, gas processing plants, and crude and natural gas takeaway pipelines, among other things. Marathon Petroleum Corp.’s midstream-focused master limited partnership also has been in hot pursuit of a number of possible NGL-related projects, including MPLX’s proposed Belvieu Alternative NGL (BANGL) Pipeline and three big fractionation plants in the Sweeny, TX, area, and a planned LPG export terminal in Texas City, TX. As a group, these projects would require millions of barrels of underground salt-cavern storage capacity for y-grade and NGL purity products along the Texas coast, as well as multiple pipeline connections to move the stuff to where it needs to be. Today, we continue our series on Gulf Coast NGL storage with a look at the NGL side of the MLP’s Permian-to-Gulf strategy.
RBN Energy’s South Texas Energy Infrastructure Map brings together all the pieces of the critical and complex puzzle of the greater Corpus Christi region. Spanning from Point Comfort, TX to Corpus Christ, TX and south of the Agua Dulce natural gas hub, the map details the processing, transportation and export facilities in RBN Energy’s classic clear, concise and easy to comprehend style.
Texas’s Gulf Coast is in the midst of a major build-out of new fractionation plants (or “fracs”), steam crackers and LPG export facilities, all spurred by rising U.S. production of natural gas liquids. As we said in Part 1 of this series, this incremental NGL output and these new projects have been putting serious pressure on existing NGL pipeline and storage infrastructure, and prodding the development of new salt-cavern storage capacity for mixed NGLs and NGL purity products such as ethane, propane, normal butane, isobutane and natural gasoline. The most economical and practical way to transport and store these commodities is in their liquid state, which necessitates that the transport and storage occur under high pressure. And the most cost-effective way to provide large volumes of storage capacity at high pressure is to develop underground storage caverns within salt dome formations. There is currently about 260 MMbbl of NGL-related storage capacity in place at the NGL hub in Mont Belvieu, TX (red star in Figure 1). Elsewhere along the Texas coast, there is a total of about 100 MMbbl of NGL storage capacity, much of it tied to either fractionators or steam crackers. The companies holding the bulk of this “non-Mont Belvieu” storage capacity — at places like Stratton Ridge, Markham, Clemens Caverns and Hull (blue stars) — include Dow with about 40 MMbbl, Chevron Phillips Chemical with ~20 MMbbl, and Keyera, Phillips 66, Texas Brine, BP and others with ~10 MMbbl or less each for a combined 40 MMbbl.
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About the song
“Friends in Low Places,” written by Earl Bud Lee and Dewayne Blackwell, was a #1 hit single for country music star Garth Brooks, and remains a crowd favorite at his shows. It is a track on Garth’s second studio album, No Fences, which was released in August 1990. No Fences was recorded at Jack's Tracks Recording Studio in Nashville, with Allen Reynolds producing. It yielded four #1 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. The album would go to #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums list and #3 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart.
No Fences helped launch Garth Brooks into international superstar status, and helped bring country music into the spotlight again. Personnel on the record were: Garth Brooks (lead and backing vocals, acoustic guitar), and 20 different Nashville session players. "Friends in Low Places" also had 30 friends and singers from low places helping out on the vocals, including its writers, Earl Bud Lee and Dewayne Blackwell.
Garth Brooks is an American singer-songwriter from Oklahoma. He has released 15 studio albums, two live albums, three compilation albums and 67 singles so far in his career. He has won 23 Academy of Country Music Awards, 20 American Music Awards, three ASCAP Awards, 17 Billboard Music Awards, 13 Country Music Association Awards and two Grammy Awards. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, he is the best-selling solo albums artist in the U.S. with over 148 million albums sold in the states. He still records and tours, and is currently involved in a "Dive Bar" concert series of seven shows at smaller venues.
