19-04-2012

ONEOK Partners to invest $340M to $360M for additional projects in Cana-Woodford shale

ONEOK Partners, L.P. today announced plans to invest approximately $340 million to $360 million between now and the first quarter of 2014 to construct a new natural gas gathering and processing plant and related infrastructure in the Cana-Woodford Shale in Oklahoma.

These investments include approximately $190 million for the construction of a new 200 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) natural gas processing facility - the Canadian Valley plant - in Canadian County, Okla. - which is expected to be in service first quarter of 2014.

In addition to the investments for the Canadian Valley plant, ONEOK Partners also expects to invest approximately $160 million for expansions and upgrades to its existing natural gas gathering and compression infrastructure, increasing the partnership's capacity to gather and process natural gas to 390 MMcf/d in the Cana-Woodford Shale.

"Additional natural gas processing infrastructure is necessary to accommodate increased production of liquids-rich natural gas in the Cana-Woodford Shale where we have substantial acreage dedications from active producers," said Pierce H. Norton, executive vice president and chief operating officer of ONEOK Partners. "The new Canadian Valley plant will be located in the center of the prolific Cana-Woodford Shale and in close proximity to the partnership's existing natural gas and natural gas liquids pipelines."

When completed, the Canadian Valley plant will be the partnership's largest natural gas processing facility in Oklahoma and will increase the partnership's total natural gas processing capacity in the state to 690 MMcf/d. Additionally, the natural gas liquids produced from the new plant is expected to add incremental volumes to the partnership's extensive Oklahoma natural gas liquids system.

The partnership now has announced a total investment of $4.7 billion to $5.7 billion through 2015 for growth projects in natural gas gathering and processing, natural gas liquids and crude-oil infrastructure.

Of these projects, approximately $1.4 billion to $1.6 billion are for natural gas gathering and processing projects, which, in aggregate, are expected to generate EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) multiples of five to seven times. The incremental earnings from these projects are expected to increase distributable cash flow and value to unitholders in the form of higher distributions.

The partnership has a $1 billion-plus backlog of unannounced growth projects that it continues to evaluate.  Additional projects included in this backlog will be announced when sufficient supply commitments are completed.