ONEOK Partners, a natural gas distributor has unveiled its plans to spend $140m to $160m to develop a 270-mile natural gas gathering system and related infrastructure in North Dakota, US.

The new system will gather and deliver natural gas from producers in the Bakken Shale in Williston Basin to Oneok’s 100 million cubic feet per day Stateline II natural gas processing facility in western Williams County.

The Stateline II plant is expected to be in service in the first half of 2013.

The latest expansion plan adds to the firm’s earlier announced plans to invest about $1.5bn to $1.8bn for growth projects in the Bakken Shale region between 2011 and 2014.

The investments include the construction of a 500-mile natural-gas-liquids pipeline, the Bakken Pipeline and three 100 MMcf/d natural gas processing facilities including the Garden Creek plant.

Stateline II plant and the Garden Creek plant which went into service in December 2011.

With the completion of the Divide County natural gas gathering system, the partnership will have installed the necessary natural gas gathering infrastructure required to fill all four of the its natural gas processing plants in the Bakken Shale and Three Forks regions.