Natural Gas Processing Plants West of Williston -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Update

January 22, 2012: when I posted the story below I understood very little about the natural gas processing in the Bakken. Since then it has become much clearer. For updates, click on the ONEOK tag/label at the bottom of the blog and then read the more recent articles on the new natural gas processing plants being built in the area.

It's my understanding that ONEOK has (will have) will have four natural gas processing plants in the region by the end of 2013. Grasslands was the first to be built; Garden Creek just went on line (January, 2012); Stateline I is under construction; and, Stateline II will be completed by the end of 2013. Each of these four plants are ONEOK plants, built by Linde. Total investment for these four projects, as well as pipelines feeding them and transporting finished products is estimated to be $1.5 to $1.8 billion --- rounding, a $2 billion investment. When completed, each facility will employ about 15 - 20 full time employees.

Original Post

I don't understand the natural gas business (I'm not sure I understand the oil business), so read the following with caution. It's how I interpret what is going on.

Thanks to "anonymous" who asked about the new Linde CRYO natural gas processing plant going up west of Williston, I looked up the capacity of the natural gas processing plant at Tioga, North Dakota (Hess).

One can find the capacity of natural gas processing plants in the state of North Dakota at this site (a PDF). It is an annual report summarizing activity as of June 30, 2010.

The Hess plant at Tioga has a capacity of 120 million cubic feet day, if I read the PDF correctly at the link above. The facility at Bear Paw/ONEOK, Grasslands, McKenzie County, has a capacity of 100 mmcfd. There is a 100-mmcfd facility at Stanley, but other than that, nothing else comes close to this capacity in North Dakota.

This is the history of Linde's natural gas processing plant activity: note three plants west of Williston; one being built now; two to be built in 2012. 

So, now it looks like Linde is putting in three new facilities, each nearly with capacity of what Hess has at Tioga. According to the Stanley link, that facility exchanged hands for $185 million. I would assume it costs about that much to build a new facility. So, three new facilities could cost about $550 million. The state says there is $1 billion to $3 billion in natural gas infrastructure projects on the books.

If I read all this correctly, once these three new plants are on-line, Linde will have practically doubled the state's capacity to process natural gas.