Sherwood complex is recognized

Business News

officials cutting ceremonial ribbon

West Virginia Governor James C. Justice II performed a ribbon cutting at MPLX Gathering and Processing’s Sherwood Complex in West Virginia earlier this spring, celebrating the facility’s status as the largest gas-processing plant in North America.

Chairman and CEO Gary R. Heminger also attended the event, speaking to the assembled crowd of almost 200. “This is a very special day for Marathon Petroleum, and I compliment all of the employees here at Sherwood,” Heminger said, noting the facility’s tremendous growth since 2011. “And we’re continuing the investment in Sherwood, in West Virginia and across the entire Marcellus and Utica reservoirs.”

The Sherwood plant has a gas processing capacity of 2.2 billion cubic feet per day, and is in the process of expanding by an additional
400 million cubic feet per day. The plant processes gas produced by Antero, with which MPLX has formed a joint venture.

Antero Regional Senior Vice President Al Schopp also spoke at the event, thanking the West Virginia elected officials for their support and praising the partnership with MPLX. “It has worked because they share our commitment to safety, environmental stewardship, supporting the communities and hiring locally where they can,” he said.

Gov. Justice was grateful to MPLX and Antero for their investment in the state, saying that attendees shouldn’t be thanking him for attending. Instead, he said, he should be thanking MPLX and Antero, and that as governor, he is happy that the companies are doing business in the state.

U.S. Rep. David McKinley lauded Antero’s and MPLX’s efforts to continue expanding their operations in the state. He said that, as an engineer himself, he knows all too well the amount of work that goes into a project like Sherwood and its expansion.

U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said that investments like Sherwood achieve a balance between environmental stewardship and economic development. “I think that’s what you see here today with Antero and MPLX,” she said. “You see the leadership of the companies working hard every day to strike that balance.”