Regularly scheduled refinery turnarounds are one the most important (and expensive) activities of any refiner. Today, we look at what happens during a typical turnaround, the ways refiners seek to manage their risk, and the biggest potential payoffs that come with a well-executed project.
It finally happened. And it’s a very big deal for MPLX and ONEOK, both of which have been working for years to become full-fledged members of the elite “NGL wellhead-to-water club.” But the companies’ announcements that MPLX will build two fractionators at the terminus of a new NGL pipeline from Sweeny to Texas City and that ONEOK and MPLX will joint build a new LPG export terminal nearby (and a new purity-product pipeline between Mont Belvieu and the terminal) doesn’t just fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle they’ve been assembling. The plans also will give Gulf Coast LPG exporters the additional capacity they desperately need and — no small thing — create another fractionation hub. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss what MPLX and ONEOK are planning and why it matters.
It finally happened. And it’s a very big deal for MPLX and ONEOK, both of which have been working for years to become full-fledged members of the elite “NGL wellhead-to-water club.” But the companies’ announcements that MPLX will build two fractionators at the terminus of a new NGL pipeline from Sweeny to Texas City and that ONEOK and MPLX will joint build a new LPG export terminal nearby (and a new purity-product pipeline between Mont Belvieu and the terminal) doesn’t just fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle they’ve been assembling. The plans also will give Gulf Coast LPG exporters the additional capacity they desperately need and — no small thing — create another fractionation hub. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss what MPLX and ONEOK are planning and why it matters.
At first glance, you might think that Phillips 66’s newly announced, $2.2 billion plan to acquire the EPIC NGL pipeline system, two fractionators near Corpus Christi and other NGL-related assets in Texas is just another logical step in the expansion of P66’s “well-to-market” NGL strategy — and you’d be right. But the story is actually much more interesting, involving a long list of well-known midstream players and a long-running, still-evolving effort to dilute the Mont Belvieu NGL hub’s dominance. In today’s RBN blog, we spill the tea.
Crude-oil-focused production in the Bakken still hasn’t fully recovered from its pre-COVID high, partly because the western North Dakota shale play continues to face takeaway constraints, especially for natural gas and NGLs. A couple of NGL pipeline projects in the works will certainly help, but will they be enough to enable the Bakken’s increasingly consolidated E&P sector to ramp up its crude oil production? And one more thing: How will the incremental NGLs flowing south on Kinder Morgan’s soon-to-be-repurposed Double H Pipeline find their way to fractionation centers in Conway and Mont Belvieu? In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at the Bakken’s complicated production-vs.-takeaway conundrum and the ongoing efforts to address it.
Energy Transfer’s plan to buy WTG Midstream, a West Texas-based and private equity-backed natural gas gatherer and processor, just got a bit less expensive — and not quite so comprehensive. Energy Transfer will still acquire WTG’s network of more than 6,000 miles of gas pipelines, eight processing plants and more, but WTG’s 20% stake in the joint-venture (JV) BANGL pipeline system is no longer part of the deal. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll take a look at the detour from the original transaction.
For years, the South Texas NGL market was a world of its own — a self-contained liquids ecosystem centered around the refineries and petrochemical plants in the Corpus Christi area. But that all changed about six years ago when EPIC Midstream built a new NGL pipeline from the Permian into Corpus and a new fractionator to process those liquids. Corpus morphed into a vibrant NGL market in its own right. But nothing with South Texas NGLs is easy. Before the EPIC system was even up and running, a consortium calling itself BANGL — short for Belvieu Alternative NGL — announced another pipeline to compete for Permian NGLs that would parallel EPIC’s route out of the Permian, but then make a hard left toward Sweeny and Texas City, setting up a battle of the pipes for Permian NGLs.
