Gulfterra and Enterprise to Merge in $13 Billion Energy Partnership
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(Houston, Texas) – Enterprise Products Partners, L.P., GulfTerra Energy Partners, L.P. and El Paso Corporation have executed definitive agreements to complete the first-ever merger of master limited partnerships (MLPs), the companies announced yesterday. The merger, which will have an enterprise value of $13 billion, will result in the formation of the second-largest publicly traded MLP. El Paso and privately owned Enterprise will each own 50 percent of the general partnership of the combined MLP.
The combined partnership, which will retain the name Enterprise Products Partners L.P., will serve the largest producing basins of natural gas, crude oil and natural gas liquids in the United States, including the Gulf of Mexico, Rocky Mountains, San Juan Basin, Permian Basin, South Texas, East Texas, Mid-Continent, Louisiana Gulf Coast and, through connections with third-party pipelines, Canada’s western sedimentary basin. The partnership will also serve the largest consuming regions for natural gas, crude oil and NGLs on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The assets of the combined partnership will include more than 30,000 miles of pipelines comprised of over 17,000 miles of natural gas pipelines, 13,000 miles of NGL pipelines and 340 miles of large capacity crude oil pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico. The combined partnership’s other logistical assets will include ownership interests in 164 million barrels of NGL storage capacity and 23 billion cubic feet of natural gas storage capacity, 6 offshore Gulf of Mexico hub platforms, and import and export terminals on the Houston Ship Channel. The combined partnership will also own interests in 19 fractionation plants with a net capacity of approximately 650 thousand barrels per day and 24 natural gas processing plants with a net capacity of 6.0 billion cubic feet per day.
Akin Gump represented GulfTerra in the transaction.
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