SEMGroup

Rising crude oil production in the SCOOP and STACK oil and NGLs shale plays is driving the development of processing and natural gas pipeline capacity for associated natural gas volumes from the region. Earlier this month (Wednesday, May 3), Enable Midstream announced Project Wildcat, a 400-MMcf/d rich gas takeaway project. On the same day, SemGroup Corp. announced the Canton Pipeline to provide an initial 200 MMcf/d (and up to 400 MMcf/d) of capacity between the STACK play and its processing facility in northern Oklahoma. Enable last month also announced a firm shipper commitment on another of its takeaway projects — the Cana and STACK Expansion (CaSE). At the same time, late last month (on April 27), NextEra withdrew plans for its 1.2-Bcf/d Sooner Trails Pipeline. Today, we provide an update of the various projects vying to move associated gas from the SCOOP/STACK to downstream demand markets.

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.

Crude production in the Niobrara shale formation is focused on two areas, the Denver-Julesburg (DJ) Basin in Northeast Colorado and the Powder River Basin (PRB) in Wyoming. Production has expanded in both basins (current output is about 435 Mb/d according to the Energy Information Administration) but much of the recent volume growth has come from the DJ basin. Expectations as recently as last year that production would expand to over 700 Mb/d in the next 4 years have been tempered by the crude price crash. A couple of large pipeline projects prompted last year by those production expectations have been cancelled since but others are still being built. Today we assess crude takeaway infrastructure in the DJ basin.

New pipeline projects to take crude out of the Rockies are starting to make the map look like a spider’s web. The latest proposal comes from Spectra Energy – owners of the Express and Platte pipelines that ship crude from Hardisty to Wood River via Guernsey, WY. Spectra hope to build a pipeline carrying light sweet crude from Guernsey to the Midwest pipeline hub at Patoka. The project would bypass Cushing and push more light crude to the east with potential access to Midwest refineries or even the East Coast. Patoka is also poised to become an origination point for shipments to the Gulf Coast. Today we review the Spectra project’s chances in a crowded pipeline field.

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.

Crude production from the Denver Julesburg (DJ) and Powder River Basin (PRB) plays in the Niobrara shale in Colorado and Wyoming is up 260 percent to 361 Mb/d since January 2012 and is expected to double again by the end of 2019. Takeaway capacity is expanding but is complicated by crude streams travelling through the region from Canada and North Dakota. Rising condensate production also presents a challenge to midstream companies. New pipeline proposals to expand takeaway from the DJ by as much as 500 Mb/d have recently surfaced – suggesting that local producers are looking to secure capacity. Today we look at recent and planned expansions to Niobrara takeaway capacity.