Piñon Midstream Increases Capacity at Dark Horse Facility
The expansion includes an additional acid gas injection well and a third amine treating unit.
Piñon Midstream, LLC announced that it is expanding its sour natural-gas-treating and carbon capture Facility, known as Dark Horse, in Lea County, New Mexico.
The Dark Horse Facility, designed to treat sour natural gas and capture carbon in the Delaware Basin, has mitigated the environmental impact of regional oil and gas operations through the sequestration of both carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S), amassing over 100,000 metric tons of CO2 and H2S sequestered to date. The existing infrastructure comprises two 400 GPM amine treating units, two AGI wells that extend 18,000 feet deep, roughly 50,000 horsepower of NACE-compliant compression, and about 35 miles of high-pressure gathering and redelivery pipelines.
Piñon's Dark Horse Treating Facility Credit: Business Wire
The recently commissioned second AGI well, Independence AGI #2, in April 2023, boosts the treated AGI capacity to 20 MMcf/d. This added capacity is enough to handle up to 500 MMcf/d of treating capacity at the Dark Horse Facility. In continuation, this ensures operational redundancy, maintaining high runtimes while reducing flaring. Piñon's sour natural gas treating system in New Mexico now has the state's highest AGI injection capacity among all permitted active systems.
Piñon is expanding the sour gas treating capacity of its Dark Horse Facility by about 50% to approximately 270 MMcf/d, with the introduction of Train III. The construction of Train III is slated to commence in Q3 2023, aiming for an operational status by January 2024. Moreover, Piñon has embarked on the engineering work for Train IV.
On the compression front, Piñon currently manages four NACE-compliant compressor stations with a total compression capacity of around 200 MMcf/d. Two more compressor stations are expected to be operational in 2024, enhancing Piñon's total compression capacity to about 350 MMcf/d.
The company’s gathering and treating system includes the Grande sweet gas redelivery pipeline, a 22-mile-long high-pressure, 20-inch steel pipe connecting the Dark Horse Facility with four pre-existing major regional processors. Piñon is actively contemplating additional interconnects with third-party processors for enhanced flow assurance and customer flexibility.
