Royal Dutch Shell Plc will sell shares in a U.S. pipeline business in the second half of this year as Europe’s largest oil company takes advantage of investor appetite for North America’s energy infrastructure.

Shell Midstream Partners LP’s assets are expected to consist of ownership interests in four onshore and offshore pipelines located primarily in Texas and Louisiana, according to a filing today. The Houston-based partnership will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SHLX.

Pipeline companies structured as tax-exempt master limited partnerships, or MLPs, have attracted investors by returning almost all their income to shareholders. Share prices have soared amid a boom in oil and gas production from U.S. shale fields. Shell Midstream forecasts $96.5 million of cash available for distribution to investors over the next 12 months.

“Everybody and their dog has got an MLP now in the U.S.,” Iain Reid, a London-based analyst for BMO Capital Markets who rates Shell a buy and owns none of the shares, said today by phone. “The majors have kind of shied away from it, so this may be breaking new ground.”

The announcement comes two days after Williams Cos. said it will pay $6 billion to buy control of Access Midstream Partners LP, the pipeline operator taken public in 2010 by Chesapeake Energy Corp. under ousted chief executive officer Aubrey McClendon. The shale wildcatter now plans to invest in pipelines and processing plants through a midstream unit of his American Energy Partners LP, according to a statement today.

Dominion Resources Inc., owner of Virginia’s largest electric utility, plans to sell stakes in a partnership holding its liquefied natural gas terminal in Maryland and other assets.

Partnership Proposal

Shell didn’t say how much cash it will raise from the initial public offering. It’s proposing to sell a 49 percent stake in the partnership that will own the assets and a 2 percent stake in the unit that will run the operation.

The Cushing 30 MLP index, which tracks the partnerships, has produced total returns of 24 percent over the last year, beating the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index’s 20 percent total return, which includes reinvested dividends.

Shell would be the largest oil company to launch a master-limited partnership. It ranks behind Exxon Mobil Corp. in market value.

Barclays Plc and Citigroup Inc. are managing the proposed share sale, Shell said. The banks are the two leading advisers on North American pipeline deals this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Ho-Ho Network

Assets Shell will put into the partnership include stakes in the Ho-Ho network linking Houston and Houma in Louisiana, an offshore pipeline from the Mars field in the Gulf of Mexico and the Bengal and Colonial pipelines, which deliver fuel through the eastern U.S.

Shell Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden is selling assets to focus capital on projects with the highest returns for investors. Yesterday the oil major announced it would raise $5 billion by selling a stake in Woodside Petroleum Ltd., Australia’s largest oil and gas producer.