Blue Racer Enters Agreements For Services in Utica Shale

News
Blue Racer Midstream LLC (Dallas) has entered into long-term agreements with several Utica Shale natural gas producers to provide integrated midstream services for production in liquids-rich acreage in Monroe, Noble, Guernsey, Belmont, Harrison, and Carroll coun­ties in Ohio. Producers that have made recent dedications to Blue Racer include Eclipse Resources, Hess Corp., CONSOL Energy Inc., and PDC Energy Inc. The com­mitments build on previous commitments to Blue Racer from other producers, among them Chesapeake Energy Corp., TOTAL Gas & Power North America Inc., Rex Energy Corp., and EnerVest. All have made long-term dedications for natural gas gathering, compression, treat­ing, processing, and transportation, as well as for conden­sate handling and fractionation, storage, transportation, and NGL marketing.

Blue Racer’s network of nearly 600 miles of large-diameter gathering pipelines crosses 24 counties in Ohio and West Virginia, and has the current capacity to gather more than 1.5 Bcfd. The company will soon complete Natrium II, a 200-MMcfd expansion to its Natrium natural gas processing facility in Marshall County, W.Va. The expansion complements the Natrium I plant and brings the overall processing capacity to 400 MMcfd.

In addition, Blue Racer is building out its Berne processing complex in Monroe County, Ohio. The Berne site is designed to accommodate three 200-MMcfd cryo­genic processing units. Current fractionation capacity at the Natrium facility is 46,000 bbld, and will accommo­date the processing expansions at Natrium and the first 200 MMcfd of processed volumes at Berne. Fractionation capacity at Natrium will be expanded up to 126,000 bbld by March 2015, providing increased ethane recov­ery capabilities and accommodating future NGL volume growth from the further expansion of processing at Berne.

A 30-mile Y-grade pipeline will carry processed liquids from the Berne complex to Blue Racer’s Natrium facility for fractionation. NGLs are currently transported from Natrium to downstream markets via rail, truck, and pipeline. The addition of barge services on the Ohio River is under development. Blue Racer’s ethane pipeline pro­vides direct access to Enterprise Products’ ATEX Pipeline. Additional pipeline access out of Natrium will connect to Sunoco’s Mariner East and Mariner West pipelines and Enterprise’s TEPPCO Pipeline.

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