Jeff Hildebrand's Harvest Midstream agrees to buy some MPLX pipeline assets for $1 billion, sources say

By David French

Aug 27 (Reuters) - Harvest Midstream, owned by the founder of privately-held Hilcorp Energy, has agreed a deal to acquire around $1 billion of natural gas gathering and processing assets from MPLX MPLX.N, people familiar with the matter said.

Houston-based Harvest holds midstream assets in multiple oil and gas plays, most notably in Alaska and the Bakken shale of North Dakota. It was founded by billionaire businessman Jeff Hildebrand, who also owns Hilcorp, one of the largest private oil and gas companies in the United States.

The agreed deal with MPLX will allow Harvest to expand its operations into both the Uinta and Green River shale basins, which collectively stretch across Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private information.

Harvest is set to buy more than 1,500 miles (2,414 km) of pipelines that transport natural gas from the wellhead to larger lines that link with consumers, as well as associated processing capacity, added the sources.

MPLX and Harvest could not be reached for comment outside of normal business hours.

For MPLX, the deal comes at a time when the company is focusing more investment on the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico.

MPLX has struck around $3.5 billion of acquisitions so far in 2025, according to an August 5 analyst call. The activity has been centered on the Permian, most recently announcing at the end of July an agreement to buy Northwind Midstream for nearly $2.4 billion.

The company, alongside WhiteWater and other partners, on Monday announced the final investment decision on the Eiger Express Pipeline, a new natural gas pipeline linking the Permian with export facilities on the U.S. Gulf coast.