Ready for it? – The growth of production in the Permian Basin drives the construction of the NGL pipeline

The Permian is in the midst of an NGL infrastructure boom as midsize companies are investing to keep up with strong production growth expected over the next few years, but until these new projects are up and running , NGL pipeline capacity to the Gulf Coast is only going to get tighter. In today’s RBN blog, we look at five pipeline projects under construction or in the planning process that would significantly increase NGL takeout capacity outside the Permian.

The surge in U.S. NGL production in the early years of the Shale era was accompanied by a massive build-out of the infrastructure needed to, among other things, bring mixed NGL (also known as Grade Y) from from the gas processing plants to the NGL storage and fractionation center at Mont Belvieu. We began our review of the few large midstream companies that own and operate their own NGL networks, starting with the transfer of energy to Part 1 i Part 2 of this series.

We then shifted our focus to Targa Resources, which, in addition to being a major gas gatherer and processor in the Permian and a number of other producing areas, owns the Grand Prix NGL pipeline system and is a of the main actors of Mont Belvieu. As we pointed out in Part 3, Targa also owns and operates a huge LPG export terminal along the Houston Ship Channel in Galena Park. In Part 4we turned our attention to NGL giant Enterprise Product Partners, which owns and operates an extensive NGL network that stretches from the Appalachians to the Permian and the Rockies.