Denver Julesberg

According to the latest Energy Information Administration (EIA) monthly Drilling Productivity Report, crude production from the Niobrara shale in Colorado and Wyoming peaked at 491 Mb/d in April 2015 and is forecast to decline by ~100 Mb/d to 388 Mb/d through March 2016 – in response to falling crude prices and lower drilling activity. Meantime midstream companies are still building new pipeline capacity out of the region with the Saddlehorn and Grand Mesa projects set to add 350 Mb/d of takeaway capacity this year (2016). The pipeline build out has already caused a shift of crude shipments away from crude-by-rail (CBR) that peaked in December 2014. Yet as we describe today - rail terminals and infrastructure are still under construction in the region.

The Denver-Julesburg (DJ) Basin of the Niobrara shale in Northeast Colorado is one of the hottest crude plays around at the moment. RBN expects DJ Basin crude production to nearly double from 235 Mb/d in August 2014 to 450 Mb/d by the end of 2019 – an increase of 215 Mb/d. That growing production has sparked an infrastructure-planning spree with 4 pipeline project announcements in the last two months that could add a whopping 600 Mb/d of takeaway capacity from the DJ to Cushing by 2017. On top of that rail-loading capacity is also expanding in the DJ. Today we describe the new midstream expansion plans.