Meritage Midstream Services II LLC said March 5 that its subsidiary, Thunder Creek Gas Services LLC, has completed commissioning of the Steamboat I processing plant in Converse County, Wyoming, west of the town of Douglas. The Steamboat plant more than doubles Meritage’s natural gas processing capacity in the Powder River Basin.

Meritage is one of the preeminent midstream providers in the Powder River Basin with 380 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of processing capacity, 1,600 miles of gas gathering pipeline, 120 miles of NGL pipeline and 168,000 of compression horsepower, all underpinned by acreage dedications from its existing customers in excess of 1 million acres. Currently, 47% of the rigs operating in the Powder River Basin are operating on acreage committed to Meritage Midstream’s Thunder Creek system.

The new state-of-the-art cryogenic processing plant has a nameplate capacity of 200 MMcf/d. Additionally, the Steamboat I plant is located on a site large enough to accommodate two additional 200 MMcf/d cryogenic processing plants as future demand warrants expansion.

Strategically located in the southern portion of the basin, the Steamboat I plant complements Meritage Midstream’s existing 50 Buttes plant complex located approximately 100 miles to the north in Campbell County near Gillette, Wyoming. A new 60-mile, 20-inch trunk line connects the Steamboat I plant to the Thunder Creek gas gathering system. Both the Steamboat and 50 Buttes processing facilities connect to Wyoming Interstate Company’s Medicine Bow Lateral for residue gas, and NGLs currently flow from both facilities through Meritage’s Thunder Creek NGL Pipeline (TCNGL) to ONEOK’s Niobrara Lateral and Elk Basin System.