Summit Midstream Partners LLC (Summit Investments), the privately held company that owns and controls the general partner of Summit Midstream Partners LP (SMLP) and also owns a 49.5% limited partner interest in SMLP, reached an agreement with XTO Energy Inc. to develop and operate a new natural gas gathering system. The system will service XTO’s gas production from Belmont and Monroe counties, Ohio, and will be owned and developed by a new indirect subsidiary of Summit Investments, Summit Midstream Utica LLC. XTO will serve as the anchor shipper and has dedicated about 29,000 acres to Summit Utica under a long-term, fee-based gathering agreement.

Summit Utica will gather, compress and deliver gas produced by XTO into Regency Energy Partners LP’s 2.1 billion cubic feet per day, high-pressure Utica Ohio River Trunkline project, which is currently being developed, and other downstream delivery points. Summit Utica will be made up of more than 115 miles of gathering pipeline with four natural gas compressor stations, and will have an initial design capacity of about 500 million cubic feet per day.

Development of the Summit Utica gathering system is expected to cost about $400 million. First flows to the trunkline project are expected in the second half of 2015.