ConocoPhillips’ Midstream business is conducted primarily through a 50 percent equity investment in DCP  Midstream, LLC, a joint venture with Spectra Energy, as well as directly held assets and other equity affiliates. These assets include natural gas gathering and processing operations and natural gas liquids (NGL) fractionation and marketing businesses.

The Midstream business purchases raw natural gas from producers and gathers natural gas through extensive pipeline gathering systems. The gathered natural gas then is processed to extract NGL. The remaining residue gas is marketed to electrical utilities, industrial users and marketing companies. Most of the natural gas liquids are fractionated – separated into individual components, such as ethane, propane and butane. These individual products are marketed as chemical feedstock, fuel or refinery blendstock.

ConocoPhillips’ NGL extraction for 2009 totaled 187 MBD, of which approximately 179 MBD was from its interest in DCP Midstream. The company’s share of DCP Midstream’s raw gas throughput was approximately 3.05 BCFD.

DCP Midstream, LLC 

DCP Midstream is equally owned and governed by ConocoPhillips and Spectra Energy. Headquartered in Colorado, DCP Midstream leads the midstream segment as one of the nation’s largest natural gas gatherers and processors, the largest natural gas liquids producer, and one of the largest NGL marketers in the United States. Operations include gathering and transporting raw natural gas through approximately 60,000 miles of pipeline. The collected gas is processed at 59 owned or operated plants and treaters.

In 2005, DCP Midstream created a master limited partnership, DCP Midstream Partners, LP, of which DCP Midstream owns the general partner. DCP Midstream Partners gathers, compresses, treats, processes, transports and sells natural gas. It also transports and sells natural gas liquids and is a leading distributor of propane. The company trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “DPM.”

Directly Held Assets and Other Affiliates

ConocoPhillips owns a 39 percent equity interest in Phoenix Park Gas Processors Limited, which processes natural gas in Trinidad and markets NGL in the Caribbean, Central America and the U.S. Gulf Coast. Its facilities include a 2 BCFD gas processing plant and a 70 MBD NGL fractionator. A third gas processing train was completed in July 2009, bringing Phoenix Park’s total processing capacity to 2 BCFD. In 2009, ConocoPhillips’ share of NGL extracted from this facility averaged 8 MBD, while the company’s share of fractionated liquids averaged 17 MBD.

ConocoPhillips also holds a 22.5 percent equity interest in Gulf Coast Fractionators, which owns an NGL fractionation plant in Mont Belvieu, Texas. ConocoPhillips operates this facility and owns 24 MBD of its capacity. Additional assets include a 25-MBD-capacity NGL fractionation plant in Gallup, N.M.; a 40 percent interest in an NGL fractionation plant in Conway, Kan., in which ConocoPhillips’ share of capacity is 43 MBD; a 12.5 percent equity interest in a fractionation plant in Mont Belvieu, Texas, in which ConocoPhillips’ net share of capacity is 26 MBD; and a commercial trading organization based in Houston, Texas, that optimizes the flow of natural gas liquids and markets propane on a wholesale basis.