ONEOK Partners Committed To Reducing Flaring In North Dakota

ONEOK Partners says it was committed to reducing natural gas flaring in North Dakota as part of the state's new restrictions.

NEW YORK, Aug 6 (Reuters) - ONEOK Partners LP said on Wednesday that it was committed to reducing natural gas flaring in North Dakota as part of the state's new restrictions through new processing projects and additional capacity coming online.

The industry goal is to reduce the amount of gas flared to 10 percent by 2020 in North Dakota, which is the No. 2 producer of oil after Texas and is responsible for a third of all flared gas in the United States, according to the Energy Information Agency.

"We remain committed to being part of the solution to reduce natural gas flaring in North Dakota as we continue to invest in critical natural gas and NGL (natural gas liquid) infrastructure," Terry K. Spencer, president and chief executive officer of ONEOK, told investors in a call.

Last week, the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based company announced plans to invest $605 million to $785 million to construct a new 200-million cubic feet per day natural gas processing facility at Demicks Lake as well as related infrastructure. The company said that at the completion of the projects by the third quarter of 2016, natural gas processing capacity in the region will increase to 1.1 billion cubic feet per day.

The company added in the call on Wednesday that it expects to announce additional processing capacity in the Williston Basin by year end pending Board approval.

(Reporting By Catherine Ngai)