US production of natural gas liquids and NGL “purity products” continues to rise (aside from occasional hiccups) and domestic demand for the raw materials remains flat, so you know what’s coming, the big most of the incremental production of ethane, LPG and natural gasoline. it goes to the export docks. This is good news, and so is the fact that the midstream sector has the infrastructure in place (or under development) to handle the growing volumes of NGLs that are coming. On today’s RBN blog, we begin a series on the U.S.’s robust and growing networks of NGL pipelines, fractionators, and export terminals, starting with a look at Energy’s “well-to-water” system Transfer for collection, processing, transportation, splitting, storage and shipping in Texas.
As we said a few months ago When you break your hip, US production of NGLs from gas processing has been growing (with some adjustments) since the start of the shale revolution, from an annual average of 1.8 Mb/d 15 years to 5.9 Mb/d in 2022, a compound of 9%. annual growth rate. Currently, LGN production exceeds 6 Mb/d. A number of factors drive higher NGL production, including the related facts that most drilling is focused on crude oil, most crude-focused basins experience gas-to-oil (GOR) ratios higher and higher, and higher GORs mean more associations. gas – and, in many basins (including the Permian), associated gas that is highly NGL saturated.
The increase in U.S. NGL production over the past decade and a half has been accompanied by massive construction of NGL-related infrastructure—from gas gathering systems and gas processing plants to pipelines of NGLs, fractionators, steam crackers that consume ethane along the Gulf. Coastal (and western Pennsylvania) and export terminals capable of loading and shipping ethane, propane, butanes and natural gasoline. We’ve chronicled this construction boom in a long list of blogs, most of which dealt with a prominent individual project (such as Enterprise Products Partners’ Morgan’s Point Ethane Export Terminal) or large groups of assets (eg new gas processing plants in the Permian or fractionators in Mont Belvieu, TX).
