MarkWest Energy will operate about 2.3Bcf/d and 300,000Bbl/d of fractionation capacity, serving the Northeast shales, which includes the Utica, Marcellus and Huron, once expansion plan is complete. MarkWest also plans for other expansion projects to serve the hydrocarbon-rich area of the Marcellus Shale, including a 400MMcf/d expansion to its Majorsville processing facility bringing the plant’s cryogenic processing capacity to 670MMcf/d. The expansion will include two 200MMcf/d processing trains that will be supported by long-term agreements with Noble Energy, CONSOL Energy and Range Resources and is expected to come online next year. An extensive NGL gathering system transports all natural gas liquids recovered at the Majorsville processing complex and all other MarkWest processing facilities in the Marcellus to MarkWest’s Houston, Pennsylvania fractionation, storage and marketing complex.
MarkWest’s Marcellus NGL infrastructure will be expanded further with the installation of a large purity ethane pipeline between the Houston and Majorsville complexes and the new de-ethanization capacity at the facilities. MarkWest announced in 2011, the construction of two de-ethanization plants with the capacity to produce as much as 75,000Bbl/d of purity ethane by the middle of 2013. The company is planning to build a third de-ethanization plant that will increase production capacity to 115,000Bbl/d by 2014, to accommodate increasing liquids-rich production from customers. This will bring MarkWest’s total NGL fractionation capacity in the Marcellus to 175,000Bbl/d.
At the end of last year, MarkWest and The Energy & Minerals Group formed a join venture MarkWest Utica EMG, LLC, focused on the development of natural gas processing and NGL fractionation, transportation and marketing infrastructure to serve the drilling programs in the Utica shale in Ohio. The initial phase involved two processing complexes in Harrison and Monroe counties and 100,000BBl/d of fractionation, marketing and storage capacity in Harrison County. The Harrison complete will include 200MMcf/d of cryogenic processing capacity to begin operations in mid-2013. The Monroe County complex is expected to be operational next year as well.