Enterprise Products Partners on Tuesday announced it would build a 240,000-barrels-per-day ethane export facility to be integrated with its Mont Belvieu, Texas, complex. Enterprise said it had secured long-term contracts to support the facility, which is expected to begin operation in the third quarter of 2016. Enterprise CEO Michael A. Creel said in a statement the company expects ethane production capacity to exceed demand by 700 million barrels per day by 2020.
The Mont Belvieu fractionation facility has been receiving growing supplies of ethane from the Marcellus and Utica shale plays since Enterprise started up its Appalachia-to-Texas pipeline in January.
