We seriously need a drone to fully witness and appreciate the Great Permian Midstream Buildout underway. But since an aerial device isn’t in the budget, Reese Energy Consulting today will instead go micro-vision on the Permian’s Delaware, where one of its largest midstream operators is going full throttle to expand its natural gas bones. A little back story first.

Houston-based Kinetik, born of a 2022 merger of EagleClaw Midstream and Altus Midstream, emerged as the Texas Delaware’s King Kong of multi-stream gathering, processing, transmission, compression, and treating. On the natural gas side, the company operates 1,000 miles of gathering pipe and processes 2+ BCFD, and last year entered N.M., with grand plans for its G&P “super system” to flow more gas to the Waha. Those plans, of course, included new construction projects and an eye trained on just the right acquisition opportunity. And what a sweet pick up Kinetik has now made with an up to $840 million cash-and-stock deal for The Woodlands-based Durango Midstream. Durango’s assets will more than double Kinetik’s gathering system in the Delaware to 4,600 miles, increase its total processing capacity to 420 MMCFD, and say, “How ya’ll doin?” to 60 new customers.

And there’s more to this cowboy party. Durango is currently under construction on a 2.4 BCFD gas plant known as Kings Landing due for completion next year.