America’s shale revolution produced an enormous surge of oil and natural gas but getting that supply to market required a parallel revolution in infrastructure. Kelcy Warren and Energy Transfer were at the center of that engineering effort, rebuilding and repurposing pipelines to match a production landscape that had changed almost overnight.

Redirecting the Flow

For decades, the United States imported natural gas through Gulf Coast LNG terminals. When shale production reversed that dynamic, Kelcy Warren recognized that the existing pipeline network was pointed in the wrong direction. Appalachian gas from the Marcellus needed to move south to the Gulf Coast rather than north. Oil from the Bakken in North Dakota needed a direct route to market rather than being trucked and railed at far greater cost and risk.

Warren’s engineering background he studied civil engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington helped him see these repurposing opportunities where others saw only obstacles. Energy Transfer completed roughly a dozen major pipeline conversion projects in all. Among the most significant was the Trunkline pipeline, approximately 675 miles that was switched from natural gas to crude oil service. It connected to the 1,170-mile Dakota Access Pipeline, now part of the Bakken Pipeline system, with capacity to move up to 750,000 barrels per day. Warren was direct about the need: “The second-largest oilfield in the U.S., North Dakota’s Bakken Shale, had no market. They were trucking it and railing it, which never competes with pipelines.”

Building Export Capacity

Energy Transfer also repurposed a former Gulf Coast LNG import terminal into an export facility called Lake Charles, anticipating that American gas would soon be flowing outward to global buyers. That move proved prescient. The U.S. now exports roughly 13 billion cubic feet per day of LNG, with volumes expected to grow further. Kelcy Warren understood early that connecting supply to demand wherever that demand existed was the central job of a midstream operator. Read this article for additional information.

Learn more about Kelcy Warren on https://ir.energytransfer.com/board-member/kelcy-warren