More MarkWest Construction Under Way in Doddridge County, WV
MarkWest Energy’s Sherwood Complex in Doddridge County, WV has been in operation since 2012. Since that time, MarkWest has built and currently operates nine processing plants at the complex, capable of separating methane from NGLs. The plant continues to grow. MarkWest is currently building another two processing plants at the Sherwood Complex, to be done and in operation this year. And if that isn’t enough, MarkWest says there is potential to build another six (!) processing plants at Sherwood. As we previously noted, Sherwood is right now the fourth largest gas processing plant in the U.S., and by the end of this year, it will be number one (see MarkWest Building 6 New Processing Plants, 3 Fractionators in 2018). One of the primary reasons for the rapid expansion at Sherwood is Antero Resources, which uses the Sherwood operation to service its vast WV drilling program. Needless to say, the ever-expanding Sherwood facility is a huge blessing, economically, to Doddridge County. Here’s a deep dive into future plans for Sherwood, and how the plant benefits the local community…
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Every three months publicly traded companies, including those with major operations in the Marcellus/Utica, issue a required quarterly update for stockholders. It’s often referred to as “earnings season.” We like to cull through the updates to share items of interest with MDN readers. For drilling companies we dedicate an entire post to each company. We typically don’t cover midstream (i.e. pipeline) companies as much. However, there are a number of important projects cooking with companies like Williams, MarkWest Energy (MPLX), Summit Midstream and Tallgrass (REX Pipeline). We culled through the press releases and analyst phone call transcripts to pick out comments and portions that we think are helpful in understanding where some of these important projects are, and how they impact the bottom line of said companies. Below is our 1Q18 midstream potpourri…
NOTE: A previous version of this post reported a total price of $3.2 million, now changed to account for the addition of an extra $2.4M for required SEPs. See below.
Attendees at yesterday’s Utica Midstream conference at Walsh University in North Canton, Ohio got an earful about pipelines and processing plants. Perhaps the biggest news coming from the event (for us, anyway), is that MarkWest Energy, now part of Marathon Petroleum, plans to build another six natural gas processing plants and another three fractionation plants in the Marcellus/Utica THIS YEAR. MarkWest plans to spend a whopping $2 billion in the region this year! That’s in addition to building two new processing plants and three fractionation plants last year. A processing plant accepts raw hydrocarbons coming out of shale wells and separates out the methane from everything else–“cleaning up” the methane so it’s pipeline-ready. Fractionation takes what’s left after the methane is removed and separates those other hydrocarbons into their discrete molecules–ethane, propane, pentane, butane, etc. According to MarkWest, M-U moving butane to new markets will be a major focus this year. We also learn that MarkWest’s Sherwood facility (in WV) is now the fourth largest gas processing plant in the U.S.–and by the end of this year, it will be #1! In addition to MarkWest, there were a number of other top notch speakers at yesterday’s event, including Rick Simmers from the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources. Rick mentioned in passing there’s a shale well pad in southeast Ohio with a whopping 28 wells on it. Below is a summary of what was said at yesterday’s event…
A construction company based in North Dakota, Bilfinger Westcon, has filed several lawsuits against MarkWest Energy (now owned by Marathon Petroleum) claiming MarkWest has failed to pay more than $40 million for work done on a number of projects. Bilfinger Westcon says MarkWest used a “time & materials cap” scheme to cap the amount of money they paid for various projects, but then slipped in last-minute change orders. Essentially, it was a way of getting more work for free–that’s the charge being made. Bilfinger says MarkWest was getting ready to sell itself to Marathon and wanted to rush to complete several projects and using time & materials cap was how they did it without breaking the bank. We have to say this is the first time we’ve heard or read anything negative about MarkWest’s business practices. We suspect there’s another side to this story, but MarkWest says they won’t comment on pending litigation. Here’s the Bilfinger Westcon side of the story…
MPLX, which used to be known as MarkWest Energy prior to selling itself to Marathon Petroleum, issued its fourth quarter 2017 update yesterday. And wow, what an update! MarkWest…OK, MPLX (old habits die hard)…is the Marcellus/Utica region’s leading gas processing company. MPLX’s facilities process on the order of 60% of all the gas produced in the Marcellus/Utica. The region produced record volumes of gas in 4Q17 (and indeed for all of 2017), which in turn led to record volumes of gas processed (separating the methane from the other hydrocarbons), and record volumes of fractionation (separating the other hydrocarbons into their respective components) for MPLX. Net income soared, both for the fourth quarter and full year. In 4Q17, MPLX’s net income was $238 million, up from $133 million in 4Q16–a 79% increase. For the entire year, MPLX’s net income was $794 million, vs. $233 million in 2016. That a 241% increase year over year! Yeah, the Marcellus/Utica came back big time in 2017. But MPLX isn’t sitting around basking in the glow of success–they have big plans for 2018. In the Marcellus/Utica, MPLX will add six new gas processing plants, increasing the company’s processing capacity by 21% to over 7 billion cubic feet per day. Additionally, MPLX expects to add 40,000 barrels per day of ethane fractionation capacity, and 60,000 barrels per day of propane-plus fractionation. Below is the full update along with the latest PowerPoint presentation…
MPLX, which is the midstream subsidiary of Marathon Petroleum (essentially MarkWest renamed, since the merger), issued its second quarter 2017 update last week–and wow what an update! MPLX’s profit in 2Q17 is up 10x from 2Q16–to $190 million. Revenue is up 31% in 2Q17 from a year earlier–to $916 million. It pays to be in the midstream. The company processed 4.7 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of Marcellus/Utica gas and liquids, which is up 14% over the same period last year. Just one more bit of evidence that the industry is picking up again. This past quarter MPLX started up a 20,000-barrels-per-day fractionation train (de-ethanization) at the Bluestone complex (in Butler County, PA) in June to support growing natural gas liquids (NGL) production in the Marcellus shale. However, not all areas were up equally. Of particular note, MPLX saw a decrease in processing volumes in the Utica, and an increase in the Marcellus. On the conference call, MPLX CFO Pam Beall said right now the Utica is their “weak spot” because some producers are shifting their spending away from some areas in the Utica–spending more in other areas, including the Marcellus. However, MPLX president Mike Hennigan believes the Utica “weakness” is temporary and will pick up again. Below are excerpts from last week’s conference call, the full 2Q17 MPLX update, and the slide deck used on the conference call…
In February MDN reported that Marathon Petroleum had begun to build a 49-mile condensate pipeline, called HALI–the Harpster to Lima Pipeline (see 
In October 2016, MDN reported that electric company FirstEnergy had begun construction of a new electric substation in Washington County, PA to provide electricity to “support two natural gas processing facilities being developed in the area” (see