Tallgrass Energy Partners LP (NYSE: TEP) said June 5 it will develop the Tallgrass Grasslands Terminal in the Platteville, Colo., oil complex in partnership with Saddle Butte Pipeline.

Tallgrass subsidiaries Tallgrass Terminals LLC and Tallgrass Pony Express Pipeline LLC will develop the terminal, which will interconnect with Saddle Butte’s Denver-Julesburg Basin crude oil gathering system. The terminal will serve as a new pipeline origin for the Pony Express Platteville Extension, which is expected to have an ultimate takeaway capacity of at least 80,000 barrels of crude oil per day (Mbbl/d) and scheduled to be in service in second-quarter 2018.

The project will allow Pony Express to offer direct refinery and Cushing, Okla., terminal connections to Saddle Butte’s producer customers in the near term while the Tallgrass Grasslands Terminal is developed. The Milton Terminal will continue as an origin point when the terminal is operational.

Tallgrass Terminals will wholly own and operate the Tallgrass Grasslands Terminal when it is completed. The terminal will offer batching service for several common streams sourced from multiple gathering system interconnects.

“The proposed Platteville Extension and Tallgrass Grasslands Terminal, together with our existing Buckingham Terminal and Northeast Colorado Lateral, give Pony Express and Tallgrass Terminals an unrivaled footprint in the D-J and provide meaningful benefits to producers,” said Doug Johnson, vice president and general manager of Tallgrass Pony Express Pipeline. “Via its direct connections to refineries and six final-destination terminals in Cushing, Pony Express provides customers a broad range of delivery options and improved netbacks versus other alternative transport options.

“Saddle Butte has been great to work with, and our collaboration has enabled us to accelerate the development of our Platteville Extension by at least six months,” Johnson added. “We look forward to a mutually beneficial relationship with Saddle Butte as we continue our mission to make Pony Express the pipeline of choice for shippers in the D-J, Bakken and Powder River Basin.”

Parties interested in details of the Platteville Extension open season should contact Kyle Quackenbush, 303.763.3319, or Dean Dick, 307.232.4430. The open season is expected to conclude on July 17.