Enterprise Products Partners expands Orla II processing facility

Enterprise Products Partners plans to expand its cryogenic natural gas processing facility that is currently under construction near Orla, Texas.

The company plans to add 300 million cu. ft. per day of incremental capacity at the facility. Orla II, a second processing train at the facility, will double the inlet capacity of the facility to 600,000 million cu. ft. per day to increase extraction of natural gas liquids (NGLs) from 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 80,000 bpd, according to Enterprise. NGLs from Orla will be delivered into Enterprise’s NGL system, including the recently announced Shin Oak pipeline.

The Shin Oak pipeline will originate at the partnership’s Hobbs NGL fractionation and storage facility in Gaines County, Texas, and it will transport Permian Basin NGLs to the partnership’s NGL complex in Mont Belvieu, Texas. Shin Oak will feature an initial capacity of 250,000 bpd and will be expandable to 600,000 bpd, Enterprise says.

Orla’s residue and natural gas volumes will be transported to the Waha area through Enterprise’s Texas Intrastate system. In addition, the Orla II expansion project will support the continued growth in NGL-rich natural gas production from the Delaware Basin of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, according to Enterprise.

“This project is a perfect example of Enterprise’s business philosophy of leveraging its integrated midstream network to link supplies and markets,” says A.J. Teague, CEO of Enterprise’s general partner. “By providing direct access to our extensive natural gas and NGL pipeline infrastructure, Enterprise gives Delaware Basin producers connectivity to a full slate of services and end users along the Gulf Coast, including petrochemical operators who are building new facilities and export customers with a strong appetite for U.S. production.”

The expansion of the Orla facility will bring the partnership’s total natural gas processing capacity to more than 1 billion cu. ft. per day of processing capacity and more than 150,000 bpd of NGL extraction capacity in the Permian Basin. The Orla II capacity is expected to be available in the third quarter of 2018, Enterprise adds.