The mid-stream gathering services involve the transportation, storage and wholesale of crude and refined petroleum products to avoid long delays in production.

Consol and Noble have written up a draft registration statement to submit to the US Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of common units of the MLP.

The offering is expected to be completed toward the end of the year.

In the US, an MLP is only allowed if it sources most of its cash flows from real estate, natural resources or commodities.

Following the closing of the initial public offering, Consol and Noble will control the general partner of the MLP, which, in turn, will own the incentive distribution rights, and will collectively hold a majority of the limited partner interests of the MLP.

A registration statement relating to the securities of the MLP that would be sold in the offering has not been filed with the SEC or become effective as yet.

The MLP is just one part of Consol’s major shakeup.

The company was the largest bituminous coal producer in the US for more than a century, until it shifted its focus to the shale gas industry in 2009.

Last year the company announced that it would sell a major portion of its subsidiary Consolidation Coal Company, giving up all of its five long wall mines in West Virginia.

Consol’s attention is now focused on the Marcellus shale, where it plans to invest $US825 million ($A875 million) in capital expenditures this year.