Enterprise starts Mentone natural gas processing facility in Texas, US

American midstream natural gas and crude oil pipeline company Enterprise Products Partners has started commercial operations at its Mentone cryogenic natural gas processing plant in Loving County, Texas.

The facility has the capacity to process 300 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of natural gas. It is capable of extracting more than 40,000bpd of natural gas liquids (NGLs).

Supported by a long-term acreage dedication agreement, the facility aids in the processing of natural gas and NGLs from the Delaware Basin.

Enterprise Products Partners chief commercial officer Brent Secrest said: “Mentone is our seventh natural gas processing plant in the Delaware Basin and increases our total capacity in the Permian Basin to more than 1.6MMcf/d of natural gas processing and more than 250,000bpd of NGL extraction.

“These assets provide critical infrastructure to facilitate growing natural gas and NGL production in the region, which is expected to increase by more than 60% over the next five years.

“The addition of Mentone also enhances access to our fully integrated midstream network of assets linking producers in the Delaware Basin to domestic and international demand.”

The company has also constructed residue pipelines and 66 miles of large-diameter gathering. It also expanded a compression capability, which links the cryogenic natural gas processing plant to the pipeline networks of the partnership’s NGL and Texas Intrastate natural gas.

Enterprise is engaged in constructing 300,000bpd of fractionation capacity at its Mont Belvieu NGL complex in Texas to provide housing for the increased NGLs.

In June 2016, Enterprise announced plans to build a new cryogenic natural gas processing facility and associated natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline infrastructure in the US.