Meritage Midstream Services II LLC announced that operations on the first 108-mile leg of the Thunder Creek NGL Pipeline will begin in January 2015. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission-regulated pipeline will be owned and operated by Thunder Creek NGL Pipeline LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Meritage. The pipeline will serve producers in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin and consists of 22 miles of newly constructed pipeline and 86 miles secured through a long-term lease from Phillips 66. The pipeline has an initial transport capacity of 15,000 barrels per day (bbl/d), with the option to increase the capacity to 30,000 bbl/d.

The pipeline originates at Meritage subsidiary Thunder Creek Gas Services LLC’s 50 Buttes Natural Gas Processing complex near Gillette, Wyo., and terminates at an interconnect with Phillips 66’s Powder River Pipeline near Douglas, Wyo. The Powder River Pipeline delivers NGL to Phillips 66’s fractionation and refining complex near Borger, Texas.

Meritage will also begin construction of a 140-mile extension of the NGL pipeline in early 2015. The extension will include an interconnect near Cheyenne, Wyo., into the Overland Pass Pipeline Co.’s 760-mile pipeline that provides NGL deliveries to the Midcontinent market center in Conway, Kan. The extension is expected to enter service during first-quarter 2016.