Boardwalk Announces South Texas Eagle Ford Expansion

Boardwalk Pipeline Partners, LP (NYSE:BWP) today announced that its subsidiary, Boardwalk Field Services, LLC, will expand its gathering system and construct a cryogenic gas processing plant to serve producers in the Eagle Ford Shale. This project is supported by long-term, fee-based gathering and processing agreements. The gathering expansion and processing plant are estimated to cost approximately $180 million and are expected to be placed in service during the first quarter of 2013. Boardwalk has executed a fixed-price contract with Exterran to design, manufacture and construct the processing plant and construction has commenced.

"This is a major step in the implementation of our strategy to serve the growing needs of producers in the prolific Eagle Ford Shale basin and we are pleased to have Statoil Natural Gas LLC and Talisman Energy USA, Inc, as anchor customers," said Stan Horton, President and CEO of Boardwalk. "We have long-term processing agreements and associated gathering agreements for approximately fifty percent of the processing plant’s capacity and we are in discussions to sell the remaining gathering and processing capacity to other credit-worthy customers with long-term, fee-based agreements. Production in this rich-gas area is outpacing existing infrastructure and therefore timely execution of our South Texas expansion will fill a critical need for capacity.”

Boardwalk will add approximately 55 miles of 20” and 24” gathering pipeline to its existing 340-mile south Texas gathering system. Once complete, the combined pipeline system will have the capability to move in excess of 300 MMcf/d of liquids-rich gas from Karnes and Dewitt counties in the heart of the Eagle Ford play to the new Flag City processing plant. The processing plant will be located near Edna, Texas, and will have capacity to process 150 MMcf/day of natural gas. Boardwalk Field Services will also provide re-delivery of processed residue gas to a number of interstate and intrastate pipelines, including Boardwalk’s Gulf South Pipeline.