MIDLAND, Texas —
Pipeline construction projects are nothing new, especially in Texas.
But it’s not every day you hear about a pipeline that’s planned to stretch 690 miles.
“So, the DeLa Express Pipeline Project in particular is a natural gas and natural gas liquids pipeline. So, it specifically is being put in place to move natural gas from producing areas like the Permian Basin to the markets where that product can then get either sold or turned into a product and sold later on down the line," said Stephen Robertson, executive vice president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association. "That's something that's incredibly important for the Permian Basin, you know, we are largely a natural or we are largely a crude oil producing region. We’re the largest oil producing region in the United States but we're also the second largest natural gas producing region in the United States.”
Robertson said it’s a lot more work to transport natural gas compared to oil because of the need to keep it pressurized.
So, a pipeline project of this scale is going to give the Permian Basin access to markets that it usually might not have access to.
“So, this is not the first pipeline to ever take natural gas or attempt to take natural gas out of the Permian Basin. I think one of the things that makes this one more unique than others is the fact that it is an 'Interstate' pipeline trying to come out of the Permian Basin. It's not just going down to the Gulf Coast in the state of Texas or going to Houston. It is trying to go to Louisiana," Robertson said. "So, it's crossing the entire state to get to Louisiana to the market it’s trying to get to.”
But what if you’re a property owner with land in the pipeline’s path?
“Anytime that a pipeline is going to be put in place or a new road or an electrical transmission distribution line, the entities trying to put those infrastructure projects in place have to negotiate with any land owners that they're going through and that's the number one step is to try to do a business transaction with whoever owns the land so that both sides can kind of get what they want," Robertson said. "The landowner would be able to get economic value, could be able to be able to dictate some terms on exactly where it's going to go, what kind of access people are going to be able to have and that is always the hope.”
After all the necessary preliminary work has been taken care of, construction of the pipeline is anticipated to commence in the second quarter of 2026 and the pipeline will complete in 2028.