News Release Jan. 09, 2002

DENVER – Duke Energy Field Services (DEFS) has completed start-up testing operations at its new Platteville natural gas processing plant, and placed it into commercial operation. 

The Platteville processing plant, located northeast of Denver, will have an initial capacity of 33 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of natural gas, and is expandable to 50 MMcf/d with additional inlet compression.

The Platteville plant will facilitate additional oil and gas production growth in the Denver-Julesburg (D-J) Basin from DEFS’ customers. This expansion of processing capacity represents the third major expansion of capacity in the last three years and increases DEFS’ processing capacity in the area to more than 240 MMcf/d. DEFS presently owns and operates seven plants and more than 2,200 miles of gas gathering lines in the area. 

“The D-J Basin area continues to see production growth and high levels of producer activity despite the volatile commodity price environment we have experienced over the past year,” said Michael J. Bradley, senior vice president, DEFS. “Even with our having added 60 MMcf/d of incremental processing capacity in the area over the past two years, all of our plants were running at or near their full capacities, necessitating the new Platteville plant to meet the needs of our customers.”

DEFS is a premier North American midstream company that leads or is among the nation’s leaders in the gathering and processing of natural gas, transportation and marketing of NGLs. Other services include transportation, marketing and storage of natural gas. DEFS has 2,700 employees and operates in 11 states across the five largest natural gas producing regions in North America, extending from western Canada to the Gulf Coast. The Denver-based company owns and operates 64 plants, 57,000 miles of pipeline and had revenues of $9 billion and assets if $6 billion in 2000. Current volumes exceed 8 Tbtu/d of natural gas and 400,000 Bbls/d of NGLs. DEFS also owns the general partner of TEPPCO Partners, L.P., a publicly traded master limited partnership.

DEFS was formed by combining the Duke Energy and Phillips Petroleum natural gas gathering and processing businesses. Duke Energy owns approximately 70 percent of the joint venture and Phillips Petroleum owns about 30 percent. More information is available about the company at www.defs.com.