ONEOK to complete unfinished projects in Texas and North Dakota

 

OKE-OKS Announces Demicks Lake NR

 

ONEOK, Inc.  announced Monday it is moving ahead with completion of natural gas and natural gas liquids infrastructure projects in North Dakota and Texas that the company halted work on because of the 2020 pandemic and the effects on the energy markets.

One is the Demicks Lake III, a 200 million cubic feet a day natural gas processing facility in the Williston Basin.

The other is BB-5, a 125,000-barrel a day NGL fractionator located in Mont Belvieu, Texas.

Mont Belvieu, Texas Water Quality Report

It was in March of 2020 when ONEOK announced plans to cut its 2020 capital spending by $500 million “due to the current commodity price environment.”

The cuts included a planned expansion of the Demicks Lake natural gas processing facility, Demicks Lake III. ONEOK also reduce the scope of its Elk Creek pipeline expansion which was needed to carry NGLs out of the Bakken to market.

The 200-MMcf/d Demicks Lake III natural gas processing plant in McKenzie County, North Dakota, is expected to cost approximately $140 million to complete. The facility, which is supported by acreage dedications with primarily fee-based contracts, is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2023.

The new plant will increase ONEOK’s Williston Basin natural gas processing capacity to approximately 1.9 billion cubic feet per day.

“Increasing producer activity and improving demand for natural gas and NGLs drove the decision to restart these attractive return projects,” said Pierce H. Norton II, ONEOK president and chief executive officer in announcing the resumption of the projects. “We continue to align our capital investments with our customers’ needs and expectations, and remain focused on further enhancing the reliability of our infrastructure.

“Demicks Lake III will support producer development plans in the core of the Williston Basin while continuing our commitment to help customers reduce natural gas flaring and MB-5 will accommodate NGL volume growth from across our operations, including the Rocky Mountain region and Permian Basin.”

The remaining capital investment necessary to complete these projects is significantly less than building greenfield facilities, and will provide needed capacity at an attractive return on invested capital.

The 125,000 bpd MB-5 fractionator in Mont Belvieu, Texas, is fully contracted and expected to cost approximately $250 million to complete. The facility is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2023 and will increase ONEOK’s total NGL fractionation capacity to more than 1 million bpd.

Source: ONEOK release