News Articles & Press Releases
Full Ownership of Mont Belvieu Storage Facility Is Acquired
Houston, Texas (March 1, 2007) – Louis Dreyfus Energy Services L.P., a member of the LDH Energy group of companies (LDH Energy), has purchased TE Products Pipeline Company Limited Partnership’s (TEPPCO) interest in Mont Belvieu Storage Partners (MBSP) in Mont Belvieu, Texas. Louis Dreyfus Energy Services L.P. and TEPPCO previously each owned 50 percent in the partnership.
“Acquiring full ownership of the Mont Belvieu storage facility furthers our strategy of owning assets that benefit from our energy merchant business,” said William C. Rippe, executive vice president of LDH Energy.
The Mont Belvieu storage facility has 43 million barrels of natural gas liquids capacity and a short-haul transportation pipeline shuttle system that ties the Mont Belvieu terminal to refinery and petrochemical facilities along the upper Texas Gulf Coast. The acquisition includes 800 acres of surface rights.
“We will assume both commercial and physical operations of the facility,” said Mike Dowling, vice president and managing director of business development for LDH Energy, “but we see no other immediate changes.”
In April of 2006, Louis Dreyfus Pipeline L.P. announced that it had initiated the permitting process to build an NGL pipeline from its current Hull, Texas, destination to the Mont Belvieu natural gas liquids hub. Joe Rothbauer, vice president of midstream operations for LDH Energy, said that the pipeline will provide incremental NGL take-away capacity that is important for continued Barnett Shale development.
Construction of the Hull to Mont Belvieu extension began in February. When completed, the 31-mile pipeline will provide direct access to the Mont Belvieu NGL hub. The 12-inch pipeline is expected to be operational by the second quarter 2007 and will have a capacity of more than 120,000 barrels per day.
About Louis Dreyfus Highbridge Energy
Louis Dreyfus Highbridge Energy operates one of the largest natural gas liquids, natural gas, coal, petroleum and petrochemical merchandising companies in North America and is involved in the processing, trading and transporting of a range of energy products. Currently marketing over 5.0 bcf of physical natural gas each day, its asset base includes ownership of a 1,400-mile NGL pipeline from the Permian basin to a Hull storage facility; a 4.5-million barrel propane/butane storage and terminal facility in Hattiesburg, Mississippi; an approximate 20-percent interest in the Sea Robin Gas Processing Plant (Sea Robin); and a gas gathering and processing system in Eastland, Erath, Bosque and Hill Counties in north Texas. An affiliate, Louis Dreyfus Olefins, owns two cryogenic liquids extraction plants, an olefins fractionation plant and an 85-mile pipeline located in southeast Louisiana.
LDH Energy is a partnership between the Louis Dreyfus Group and Highbridge Capital Management. The Louis Dreyfus Group, which was founded in 1851, is an organization of diversified companies whose principal activities include worldwide processing, trading and merchandising of a broad range of agricultural and energy commodities, telecommunications, real estate development and shipping. For more information, please visit www.louisdreyfus.com. Highbridge Capital Management is a global alternative asset management company, headquartered in New York, that is majority owned by JPMorgan Chase & Co.