DCP Midstream LLC has been the largest gas processor and NGL producer in Midstream Business’ rankings for the last two years and it’s easy to see why when you look at the company’s holdings: 64 processing plants and 67,500 miles of integrated pipelines that extend its reach to most of the country’s most important liquids and gas plays.

Clearly a system this large doesn’t come together overnight and DCP Midstream is no different. While DCP Midstream and its MLP, DCP Midstream Partners LP, have been in operations for a little under a decade, the history for the DCP enterprise—which includes its shareholders Phillips 66 and Spectra Energy Corp.—extends nearly 90 years.

“We are not the new kids on the block,” Wouter van Kempen, the chairman and CEO of DCP Midstream and DCP Midstream Partners, said during DCP Midstream’s investor and analyst conference on Oct. 7.

The company ranks as one of the top gas processors in the Permian, Midcontinent, Niobrara, Denver-Julesburg (D-J) Basin, and Eagle Ford due to its legacy holdings that have allowed the company to optimize its asset base rather than have to build new infrastructure to meet producer demands.

“We like to say that existing steel in the ground beats new steel every day,” Brian Frederick, president of DCP Midstream’s South and Midcontinent business units, said during the conference. This strategy has been most evident in the SCOOP (South Central Oklahoma Oil Province), the Mississippi Lime, and the Granite Wash.

In all the DCP enterprise has an enterprise value between $15 billion to $20 billion, which grows to more than $100 billion when including Phillips 66 and Spectra Energy. This far-reaching asset base and lengthy history allow DCP to differentiate itself from other companies. “I always like to say to our customers that DCP is the one that builds [infrastructure] for you, DCP is the one that will operate [infrastructure] for you and DCP is the company that will dismantle the operation when it’s no longer needed in a couple of generations from now. We have been doing that for the last 90 years. That matters for our customers, especially in today’s environment,” van Kempen said.

He also highlighted DCP’s exemplary safety and reliability records, which he said are built into the company’s core and is reflected in its employee saying: Safety takes us home. “It really matters to us that every employee, every visitor, and every contractor makes it home safe every night ... [Reliability] drives our profitability and allows us to earn the right to grow. Our customers demand it, it pays dividends to everyone so we invest a lot of resources to continually improve reliability.”

These principles have helped DCP become a fully integrated midstream service provider in less than five years through a “growth-for-growth” strategy. “Since 2010, the DCP enterprise has been on a journey of strong self-funded growth, growing about 60% over the last four years,” van Kempen said. This has been achieved by dropping assets down from the general partnership (GP) into the partnership, which issues debt and equity for the acquisitions and then returns the proceeds from the dropdowns back to the GP.

This integration is now propelling the company’s further growth by maximizing the entire value chain, which is underpinned by its focus on capital efficiency. According to van Kempen, DCP Midstream paces its investments to align with customer demand in order to bring on infrastructure when it is needed, which creates long-term sustainable value. Working with customers has also benefited the company as it has ensured a focus on liquids-rich production.

In total, van Kempen said that DCP Midstream has identified $4 billion to $6 billion in organic growth opportunities that could be in place by the end of 2016 that would follow the $4 billion the company invested from 2010 to the end of 2014.

The Permian Basin in particular is a focal point for DCP Midstream as it has quickly become one of the biggest and most active play in the U.S., according to Greg Smith, president of DCP Midstream’s Permian and North business units.

From 2010 to 2013, the company focused on plant expansions in the region. Beginning last year it has been focusing on new plant construction in order to handle all of the activity in the region. These plants are then tied together with large gathering lines as well as the new Sand Hills NGL Pipeline.

“The growth shows no sign of stopping … [and] is also helping DCP to modernize its gathering systems and optimize our processing fleet. We have large acreage dedications from our customers of about 10 million acres, almost the same size of Maryland and Connecticut combined and we forecast to spend up to $1.5 billion between now and 2016,” Smith said. These include two new processing plants: one in the Delaware Basin and the other straddling the Wolfberry and Wolfcamp plays.

DCP Midstream’s large asset base also provides tremendous optionality to its customers by providing them access to multiple markets so they can secure premium netbacks. One example of this was the company’s construction of the Southern Hills Pipeline, which allows Midcontinent production to reach the Mont Belvieu, Texas, market along the Gulf Coast.

While the Permian Basin has been garnering a great deal of attention, Smith stated that the D-J Basin is another “superstar” play that could support the development of a new processing plant every 18 months for the next few years. This would more than double the company’s current processing capacity to more than 1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) with a capacity of 1.5 Bcf/d possible.

The Douglas, Wyo., system may also be targeted for growth as producers have increased activity in the nearby Powder River Basin in Wyoming. “This is a crude play that is beginning to catch the attention of E&P companies … It’s eye-opening when you cross the state line from Colorado into Wyoming and see the amount of activity [taking place]. It feels like producers are figuring out the science of extracting oil and rich gas from this area,” Smith said.

This system currently gathers more than 50 million cubic feet per day of gas and is exploring the possibility of building a new processing plant in the region, which could double the system’s capacity.

The company’s web of assets also works to provide it access to plays where it isn’t really active on paper. Case in point being the Marcellus Shale, where it has one of the largest NGL distribution networks, according to Don Baldridge, DCP Midstream’s president of marketing and logistics. DCP Midstream is an active purchaser and transporter of Marcellus NGL to its network of terminals, storage and export facilities.

Clearly the integrated approach has been enormously successful for DCP Midstream and as more opportunities arise it is likely to continue its successful growth.