MPLX said Friday it has agreed to pay $2.375 billion in cash to Houston-based Five Point Infrastructure for Northwind Delaware Holdings, a New Mexico sour gas gathering, treatment and processing service operating in the Permian Basin.
Northwind assets include more than 200,000 dedicated acres, 200+ miles of gathering pipelines, two in-service carbon sequestration and acid gas injection (AGI) wells mostly located in the Lea County above the Delaware Basin. A third well scheduled for completion in 2026 would bring the system’s total capacity up to 37MMcf/day.
The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2025.
Latham & Watkins served as outside legal counsel to Five Points. Piper Sandler is the company’s financial advisor.
The Latham team was led by Houston partner Lauren Anderson with a corporate team that includes Houston associates John Daywalt, Vera Bespalova, Catherine Sims, and Braydon Jones.
Houston partners Tim Fenn and Jim Cole advised on taxes with associate Dominick Constantino; Jason Cruise and counsel Jamie Sadler counsel on tax issues from Washington, D.C. with associates Bernie Archbold and Mary Casale; on employment and benefits matters by Washington, D.C. partner Adam Kestenbaum, with associate Hayden Rutledge; on real estate matters by San Diego counsel Aaron Friberg; on insurance matters by Los Angeles partner Harrison White, with associate Matty McColl; on intellectual property matters by associate Andrew Abokhair; on data privacy matters by Houston/Austin partner Robert Brown; and on environmental matters by Los Angeles/Houston partner Joshua Marnitz, with associate Nolan Fargo.
Northwind was founded in 2022 as a sour gas operation in an area largely restricted for exploration due to the lack of sour natural gas treating, acid-gas injection and sequestration well capacity. The operation came to include the incentivized capture and sequestration of CO2 in the natural gas stream.
David Capobianco, CEO and Managing Partner of Five Point Infrastructure, congratulated MPLX on what he called the “acquisition of a great business.”
“We’re proud to have played a key role in unlocking development potential in the Northern Delaware Basin, which we continue to expect will be one of the most important oil producing regions in North America. This transaction is a clear validation of our investment thesis regarding the need for critical infrastructure development across the nation’s most productive energy basins.”
Five Point Infrastructure is owned by Five Point Energy, a private equity firm founded in 2012 by Capobianco. MPLX is a large cap midstream and infrastructure partnership formed by Marathon Oil based in Findley, Ohio.
Frank Bayouth is the General Counsel of Five Point. Molly Benson is chief legal officer of Marathon Petroleum, the parent company of MPLX.