Natural gas distributor ONEOK Partners announced plans to invest $340m to $360m to develop a natural gas gathering system and processing plant and related infrastructure in the Cana-Woodford Shale, US.

The company will invest $190m to construction of a new 200 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) natural gas processing facility, the Canadian Valley plant in Oklahoma, which will be in service by 2014.

It will also allocate $160m for expansions and upgrades to its existing natural gas gathering and compression infrastructure, thereby increasing the company’s capacity to gather and process natural gas to 390 MMcf/d in the Cana-Woodford Shale.

Upon completion, the Canadian Valley plant will increase the total natural gas processing capacity in the state to 690 MMcf/d.

ONEOK Partners executive vice president and chief operating officer Pierce H. Norton said the additional natural gas processing infrastructure is required to accommodate increased production of liquids-rich natural gas in the Cana-Woodford Shale.

"The new Canadian Valley plant will be located in the center of the prolific Cana-Woodford Shale and in close proximity to the partnership’s existing natural gas and natural gas liquids pipelines," said H. Norton.

The partnership also announced a total investment of $4.7bn to $5.7bn in natural gas gathering and processing, natural gas liquids and crude-oil infrastructure through 2015.