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Williams (WMB) to Offer Its Services for Whale Development

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Williams Companies, Inc. (WMB - Free Report) entered an agreement with subsidiaries of Royal Dutch Shell plc and Chevron Corporation (CVX - Free Report) to provide offshore natural gas gathering and crude oil transportation services for the Whale deep-water field development in the southern part of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

Per the terms of the agreement, Williams will also provide onshore natural gas processing services for the Whale development, which is regarded as one of the largest oilfield discoveries in the past 10 years. Shell Offshore is the operator of the project, with a 60% participating interest, while Chevronowns the rest.

The Whale development holds a recoverable resource of 490 million barrels of oil equivalent. Notably, it is expected to achieve the peak production of 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Production from the oilfield is likely to begin in 2024.

The Whale development lies about 10 miles from the Shell-operated Perdido host facility, one of the most prolific and strategic plays in the Gulf of Mexico.Williams intends to develop a 25-mile natural gas lateral pipeline from the Whale platform to the existing Perdido gas pipeline and another 125-mile oil pipeline to its GA-A244 junction platform. The obtained natural gas will be processed at Williams’ Markham gas processing plant in Texas.

Williams’ resources in the Gulf of Mexico provide a full value chain of capabilities, which includes gathering, transmission, processing and fractionation. The company owns and operates 3,500 miles of natural gas, and oil gathering and transmission pipeline system. Its facilities have a cryogenic processing capacity of 1.8 billion cubic feet per day and a fractionation capacity of 60,000 barrels per day.

The asset synergies in the Gulf of Mexico would bolster Williams’ existing onshore and offshore infrastructure to meet the rising demands of deepwater producers. The agreement will increase the company’s footprint in the Gulf of Mexico by creating connection opportunities for producers to capture the full value of important deepwater resources.

Company Profile & Price Performance

Headquartered in Tulsa, OK, Williams is a leading energy infrastructure provider in North America.

Shares of the company have underperformed the industry in the past six months. Its stock has gained 9.4% compared with the industry’s 9.5% growth.

 

Zacks Investment Research
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Zacks Rank & Stock to Consider

Williams currently carries a Zack Rank #3 (Hold).

One better-ranked player in the energy space is Ecopetrol S.A. (EC - Free Report) , currently carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 (Strong Buy) Rank stocks here.

Ecopetrol’s earnings for 2021 are expected to rise 10.9% year over year.


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