RIL to exit US shale gas pipeline venture

Reliance Industries said it planned to sell its share in the Eagle Ford Shale Midstream business in the US, which it has with a partner, Pioneer Natural Resources.

Reliance Holding USA, Inc owns 49.9 per cent of the EFS Midstream business and Pioneer holds 50.1 per cent.

The move is being seen as an attempt by the partners to concentrate on shale gas production. The disinvestment is confined to the midstream pipeline and other infrastructure business and not the upstream shale assets.

EFS Midstream was formed in 2010 to construct facilities to provide gathering and handling services for condensate and natural gas produced from wells in the Eagle Ford Shale. These services are provided for the Eagle Ford Shale upstream joint venture operated by Pioneer (Pioneer 46 per cent, Reliance 45 per cent and Newpek LLC nine per cent) and for various third parties.

The EFS Midstream system consists of 10 central gathering plants and approximately 460 miles of pipeline. It gathers and separates produced condensate from produced gas. It also stabilises the condensate, where necessary, and treats the gas. Pioneer’s cash flow from EFS Midstream is forecast at over $100 million in 2015.

“The sale of EFS Midstream would allow us to strategically redeploy capital to our core, oil-rich Spraberry/Wolf camp assets in the Permian Basin of West Texas, where we are successfully transforming the substantial resource potential we delineated in 2013 into strong production growth. We currently have no plans to divest our Eagle Ford Shale upstream assets. The sale of EFS Midstream is not expected to impact our ability to export processed Eagle Ford condensate,” stated Scott D Sheffield, chairman of Pioneer.

CHANGE OF TACK

• Reliance Holding USA, Inc owns 49.9 per cent of the EFS Midstream business and Pioneer holds 50.1 per cent
• The disinvestment is confined to the midstream pipeline and other infrastructure business and not the upstream shale assets