Enterprise Products Partners doesn’t just extract mixed NGLs from associated gas at processing plants, transport that Y-grade to the NGL hub at Mont Belvieu, and fractionate NGLs into “purity products” like ethane, propane and butanes. The midstream giant also distributes purity products to Gulf Coast steam crackers and refineries, converts propane to propylene at its two propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plants, distributes ethylene and propylene, transports propane and butane to wholesale markets across much of the eastern half of the U.S., and exports a wide range of products — ethane, LPG, ethylene and propylene among them — from two Enterprise marine terminals on the Houston Ship Channel. (Another export terminal in Beaumont, TX, is in the works.) Talk about a value chain! In today’s RBN blog, we continue our series on NGL networks with a look at Enterprise’s NGL and petrochemical production, distribution and export assets.
This blog series is about the select group of U.S. midstreamers that own and operate entire, soup-to-nuts NGL networks that take NGLs from the wellhead to either their ultimate domestic consumer — petchem plants, refineries, wholesale markets, etc. — or to waterside terminals that load purity products (and, in Enterprise’s case, ethylene and propylene too) onto ships for transport overseas. In Part 1, we looked at Energy Transfer’s NGL-related assets in Texas and in Part 2 we shifted our focus to the company’s network in the Northeast. Next up was Targa Resources — in Part 3 we looked at the company’s gas gathering and processing assets, Grand Prix NGL pipeline system, fractionators in Mont Belvieu, and the Galena Part LPG export terminal.
