Midstream Infrastructure

Midstream developers have complained for decades that federal courts reviewing agency approvals for their infrastructure projects have cast too wide a net — that is, instead of requiring agencies to simply analyze the specific environmental impacts of the project in question, the courts have been insisting regulators also examine the effects of the upstream and downstream activities the project would enable. As we discuss in today’s RBN blog, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that under the all-important National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969, it’s up to regulators to set the boundaries of their environmental review and that courts should defer to their judgment as long as they fall within a “broad zone of reasonableness.” 

A half dozen large midstream companies provide the full gamut of “wellhead-to-water” services for Permian-sourced natural gas and/or NGLs, and a couple of those offer the same for crude oil as well. For Enbridge and Plains All American, the clear focus has been on crude — pipelines, storage and marine terminals — though Enbridge has been rapidly expanding its portfolio of Permian-to-Gulf gas assets too. In today’s RBN blog, we look at what Enbridge and Plains have and what they are planning. 

Crude-oil-focused drilling and completion in the Permian Basin is generating fast-increasing volumes of associated gas — and creating opportunities for midstream companies that provide “wellhead-to-water” services for natural gas and NGLs. ONEOK has become a much bigger player in this space via several transformational acquisitions and MPLX has been making moves of its own. (The companies also are working together on a new LPG export terminal — and more.) In today’s RBN blog, we continue our review of Permian-to-Gulf midstreamers’ expansion plans with a look at what ONEOK and MPLX are up to. 

The handful of midstream companies that provide a full range of “wellhead-to-water” services between the Permian and the Gulf Coast are in growth mode, advancing a long list of gas processing plants, takeaway pipelines, fractionators and export terminal expansions. Last time we looked at what Enterprise Products Partners and Energy Transfer are up to. In today’s RBN blog, we shift our spotlight to what Targa Resources and Phillips 66 are planning, with Targa building a slew of projects and P66 growing primarily through organic opportunities that have arisen following recent bolt-on M&A. 

In their first earnings calls of 2025, the handful of large midstream companies that provide the gamut of “wellhead-to-water” services in Texas laid out plans for yet another round of projects — everything from gas processing plants and takeaway pipelines to fractionators and export terminal expansions. At the same time, many of these same midstreamers expressed a degree of caution about overbuilding. They sought to reassure Wall Street that they were only approving plans underpinned by strong commercial support. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the latest capital spending plans of this select, upper tier of midstream service providers. 

Although California refineries initially met the criteria that spurred development of crude-by-rail (CBR) shipments to other coastal regions (lack of pipeline infrastructure and wide crude price differentials between stranded inland supplies and coastal alternatives) neither rail shipments or terminal build outs have made much of a dent in the Golden States’ crude supply. At their height in December 2013 CBR shipments into California reached 36 Mb/d – just 2% of the State’s 1.9 MMb/d refining capacity and they have since dwindled to a trickle. Today we examine the low pace of shipments.