9. INTANGIBLE ASSETS

Intangible assets are comprised of customer and marketing contracts. The intangible assets balance includes $141.9 million related to the Gathering Agreement with Sanchez Energy that was entered into as part of the acquisition of the Western Catarina gathering system. The Western Catarina gathering system (“Western Catarina Midstream”) is located on the western portion of Sanchez Energy’s approximately 106,000 net acres in Dimmit, La Salle and Webb counties, Texas (the western portion of such net acreage, “Western Catarina”). Pursuant to the 15-year agreement, Sanchez Energy tenders all of its crude oil, natural gas and other hydrocarbon-based product volumes on 35,000 dedicated acres in the Western Catarina of the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas for processing and transportation through Western Catarina Midstream, with a right to tender additional volumes outside of the dedicated acreage. These intangible assets are being amortized using the straight-line method over the 15-year life of the agreement.

Amortization expense for each of the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019 was approximately $3.4 million. These costs are amortized to depreciation, depletion, and amortization expense in our condensed consolidated statements of operations. The following table is a reconciliation of changes in intangible assets (in thousands):


	March 31,		December 31,
	2020		2019
Beginning balance	$	145,246	$	158,706
Amortization		(3,364)		(13,460)
Ending balance	$	141,882	$	145,246