Field of Dreams or Production Planning? Building Out Northeast NGL Infrastructure
NGL production in the Marcellus is growing by leaps and bounds. There is only one play projected to grow faster – Utica. And Utica sits just a few thousand feet below the Marcellus. Combined NGL production from the two plays is projected to range between 450 – 600 Mb/d depending on who’s forecast you like best. But as fast as these volumes are coming on, natural gas processing capacity and fractionation capacity are being expanded even faster. Are the midstreamers getting ahead of the producers with 22 gas plant projects and 11 new fractionators or expansions in the works? Or do these midstreamers know something that is not baked into the various industry production forecasts? Let’s see what the most recent projections are telling us.
