A key executive for one of the Eagle Ford’s biggest midstream players, DCP Midstream, told the DUG Eagle Ford conference in San Antonio the unconventional play will have the infrastructure it needs to move production during the foreseeable future.

“What a transforming time this has been for us,” Brian Frederick, president of the north and south business units for DCP, told the conference’s midstream track. “But let’s not let the urgent crowd out the important” as the play continues to develop, he said, adding midstream operators must respond to producers’ needs.

Thanks to multiple midstream projects now in place or under way, Frederick said the Eagle Ford “has enough processing capacity— at least in the near term. In South Texas, I believe, the processing capacity is adequate.”

He estimated regional gas liquids fractionation capacity could increase to more than 700,000 barrels (bbl.) per day from around a current 475,000 bbl. per day in the next two to three years. That’s a sharp increase matching the play’s production climb.

DCP Midstream ranked No. 1 in the U.S. for both natural gas processing and natural gas liquids volumes for 2012, according to the annual Hart Energy survey featured in Midstream Business and Midstream Monitor. It is a major player in the Eagle Ford’s burgeoning midstream infrastructure with a processing capacity of 1.2 Bcf per day. Among its assets is an 80% interest in the new Goliad, Texas, processing plant, scheduled to go on stream in early 2014 with a capacity of 200 million cubic (MMcf) feet per day.

Frederick echoed a theme other speakers mentioned: South Texas has great potential in conventional plays that could keep the region a major player in the oil and gas industry for many years to come—even as Eagle Ford production winds down.

“We’ve seen a resurgence in the legacy plays,” he added, some of which have produced for more than 80 years. Improved drilling and completion technology could make them into major producers along with the Eagle Ford, he said.

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