Boardwalk Pipeline Partners LP (NYSE: BWP) will be heavily focused on the Marcellus and Eagle Ford shales with two major infrastructure projects in each play. The company followed up its November 2011 announcement that it was building a $90 million rich-gathering system in the Marcellus with the Feb. 6 announcement that it was planning to build a $180 million Eagle Ford gathering system.

“The Marcellus and Eagle Ford are two of the most profitable shale plays in North America. Rigs are still growing in both of these liquid-rich areas and significant midstream infrastructure is still needed. That is why Boardwalk Field Services has focused its efforts on producer needs in these areas,” Stan Horton, president and chief executive of Boardwalk Pipeline Partners, said during the company’s recent conference call to discuss Q4 2011 earnings.

The Eagle Ford system will add 55 miles of pipeline along with the 150 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) Flag City cryogenic natural gas processing plant to the company’s South Texas gathering system. He added that much of the new gathering line can be built on the existing system’s right-of-way.

Once the new system is completed it will provide Boardwalk with approximately 400 miles of pipeline with the capacity to transport more than 300 MMcf/d of liquids-rich gas from Karnes and DeWitt counties in the heart of the Eagle Ford once it is placed into service in early 2013. The company will also provide redelivery services for processed residue gas to a number of interstate and intrastate pipelines, including Gulf South.

The processing plant will be located in Edna, Texas, and built by Exterran. Boardwalk executed long-term fee-based gathering and processing agreements with Statoil and Talisman for approximately 50% of the plant’s processing capacity.

Boardwalk anticipates that the Flag City plant will be ramped up in the first three months of operations when it comes online in Q1 2013 and it is designed to be expandable with added volumes from the South Texas system.

Horton said that while the company’s Field Services unit will focus on the Marcellus and Eagle Ford in the near-term, that the Utica is likely to become another focal point for the division. “The Utica is fairly close to the northern end of the Texas Gas Pipeline system, so that’s an area that has a lot of interest for us as well ... [The] Eagle Ford, Marcellus and Utica are three very, very good basins. All are strategic to us. Two of them we have projects in; the third one is in close proximity to our pipeline system.”

Contact the author, Frank Nieto, at fnieto@hartenergy.com.