Locator: 52033B.
Anthropic unveils public IPO filing.
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Back to the Bakken
WTI: $101.10.
New wells reporting:
- Tuesday, October 27, 2026: 66 for the month, 66 for the quarter, 565 for the year,
- 42748, conf, Slawson, Warlock Federal 1-15-13H,
- 41908, conf, Devon Energy, Owan Trust North 29-28-27F 1H,
- 41486, conf, Devon Energy, Barbara 31-30F 2TFH,
- 41483, conf, Devon Energy, Barbara 31-30F 6TFH,
- Monday, October 26, 2026: 62 for the month, 62 for the quarter, 561 for the year,
- 42747, conf, Slawson, Warlock Federal 2-15-13H,
- 41919, conf, Hess, GO-Barb-157-97-3523H-5,
- Sunday, October 25, 2026: 60 for the month, 60 for the quarter, 559 for the year,
- 42746, conf, Slawson, Warlock Federal 3-15-13H,
- Saturday, October 24, 2026: 59 for the month, 59 for the quarter, 558 for the year,
- 42745, conf, Slawson, Pegasus 1-16-21UH,
- 42445, conf, SOGC, Yauch 3-4-LEH6,
- 42229, conf, Whiting, Paulson Federal 5104 4-13 6BX,
RBN Energy: fractionation, storage and exports keep Permian NGLs flowing. Link here. Archived.
The Permian, the world’s largest NGL-producing region, is poised for continued growth across the entire NGL value chain. The Permian is sending more liquids toward the Gulf Coast, but getting those barrels to market takes more than pipelines. Fractionators must separate them, export terminals must connect growing supplies with overseas buyers, and storage must provide a buffer. With domestic demand offering limited room to grow, can downstream infrastructure keep pace? In today’s RBN blog, we examine the projects helping turn rising Permian production into global supply.
This is the fifth blog in our series on the outlook for major U.S. producing basins, starting with the largest: the Permian. In Part 1, we discussed the major Permian gas pipeline projects scheduled to come online in 2026 and 2027, how much new capacity they will provide, and consider what the shift means for prices at the critical Waha Hub, Gulf Coast balances and the U.S. natural gas market. In Part 2, we reviewed the basin’s long-term gas pipeline projects and the challenges that could arise as that new infrastructure comes online. In Part 3, we discussed the Permian’s biggest gas producers and how they might respond to the new gas pipelines planned for the basin. And in Part 4, we detailed the surge in the basin’s NGL production, which is slated to account for more than half of U.S. output by 2035.
As a quick refresher, associated gas and NGLs are byproducts of crude oil production, so as oil output rises, the Permian’s infrastructure needs to keep up with the gas and NGLs that come along for the ride. Significantly for our topic today, that means a lot of new gas processing plants — which separate NGLs from the gas stream — need to be built, moved or expanded in the areas seeing high gas production growth. (New additions to the fleet tend to be cryogenic facilities that can extract a very high percentage of the liquids entrained in the gas stream and take in about 275-300 MMcf/d of NGL-packed associated gas.) From the tailgate of the processing plant, pipelines take the NGLs as a mixed stream called “Y-grade” to fractionation centers where the mixed product is separated into purity form before heading to downstream markets, like petrochemicals and exports.
Today, we’ll look at the downstream fractionation and export facilities.
Fractionation Capacity
Gulf Coast fractionation capacity is expected to remain relatively tight over the next several years, even with planned additions. More than 1.25 MMb/d of new capacity is expected by the end of 2029, and those projects must keep pace with rising NGL supply and the additional Y-grade volumes made accessible by new Permian takeaway pipelines. At the NGL hub in Mont Belvieu, TX, Enterprise Products Partners (dark-blue bar segments in Figure 1 below) is adding 345 Mb/d by 2030, Targa Resources (orange bar segments) is constructing 450 Mb/d across three new fractionators, and Energy Transfer (green bar segments) is building 165 Mb/d of additional fractionation capacity, all between 2026 and 2030, with some of that online already. Outside of Mont Belvieu, there’s also Phillips 66’s Coastal Bend fractionator (purple bar segments) in Robstown, TX (near Corpus Christi), adding 100 Mb/d by 2029, and new MPLX fractionators (red bar segments) totaling 300 Mb/d coming online in Texas City.
