The Pacific Northwest will never be a Houston or even a Marcus Hook when it comes to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) export volumes, but the region — British Columbia, Washington State and Oregon — is finally poised to get a second marine terminal dedicated to loading propane and butane, the two LPG family members. When AltaGas and Royal Vopak’s planned 40-Mb/d LPG export terminal on BC’s Ridley Island comes online in the first quarter of 2019, it will join Petrogas’s 30-Mb/d terminal in Ferndale, WA, in offering time-saving, straight-shot LPG deliveries to Asia, which has emerged as a leading destination for North American-sourced propane and butane. Other LPG export terminals in the Pacific Northwest have been proposed. Today we begin a blog series on propane and butane exports from Ferndale and the prospects for regional export growth.

Rising volumes of associated natural gas production from accelerating oil-directed drilling in the Permian, along with growing demand downstream in Mexico and along the Texas Gulf Coast, are placing renewed importance on a key West Texas trading hub and pricing point — Waha. Permian gas production climbed almost 900 million cubic feet/day (MMcf/d) during 2016 to nearly 6.0 billion cubic feet (Bcf/d), and is up another 400 MMcf/d since then. Moreover, the pace of growth shows no signs of slowing. Much of this incremental supply will rely on the pipeline interconnects and takeaway capacity available at the Waha trading hub to get to desirable markets. The questions that arise, then, are, will the capacity at Waha be sufficient and at what point will more be needed? Today we begin a series diving into the infrastructure, gas flows and capacity at Waha.

The U.S. nuclear power sector is facing its biggest crisis in years, with an increasing number of nuclear units being retired for economic reasons and the four new units now under construction in the Southeast facing possible cancellation. Bad news for the nuclear sector is good news for owners and developers of natural gas-fired power plants — and, of course, for natural gas producers — because gas plants are a primary alternative to nuclear in providing reliable, around-the-clock power. Gas plants also are a go-to choice for supporting intermittently available renewable sources like wind and solar. Today we review the woes facing the nuclear sector, efforts by some states to prop it up with subsidies, and the strong economic/environmental case for ramping up gas-fired generation.

The U.S. natural gas market in recent weeks has turned less bullish than when it began the injection season on April 1. Last week, natural gas production surpassed year-ago levels for the first time this year. Meanwhile, weather and related demand are lagging behind historical comparisons. The result has been larger injections into storage, a fast-rising inventory and lower prices. The CME/NYMEX Henry Hub futures price for the prompt July contract has been averaging about $3.029/MMBtu, down about 21 cents (6.4%) from where the June contract expired at $3.236/MMBtu. Today, we provide an update of the gas supply and demand balance and prospects for injection-season storage fill.

Exploration and production companies (E&Ps) in shale basins have a water problem — in fact, they have three water problems. Two are upfront well-completion costs: sourcing water for the frac job and disposal of the flowback water from the frac job.  These are nontrivial issues, but they pale in comparison to a much bigger problem – produced water – the water that always comes along with the oil and natural gas out of a well. It is a lot of water; on average in the U.S., somewhere around five to six barrels of water are produced for every barrel of oil that comes out of the ground, more from some basins than others. The Permian, for example, produces six to eight barrels of water per barrel of crude. That’s over 1,000 Olympic-size swimming pools full of water out of the Permian alone each day. And because this water is chock-full of minerals, petroleum residue and especially salt (which makes it brine), producers must dispose of the water in a safe, environmentally responsible manner. They are doing that today. But what happens if Permian production doubles — a distinct possibility. Today we continue our surfing-themed series on the effect of sand and water costs on producer economics with a focus on produced water in the U.S.’s hottest shale play.

By the early 2020s, crude oil flows from the Permian to Corpus Christi are likely to increase by at least several hundred thousand barrels a day and may well rise by more than one million barrels a day. That can only happen, though, if new pipeline capacity is in place to move crude from West Texas to the coast and if enough crude-related infrastructure — storage, distribution pipelines, marine docks, etc. — is developed in Corpus to receive, move and load all that oil. Docks and ship-channel depth are particularly important; the bigger the vessels that Corpus marine terminals can handle, the more competitive Permian crude will be in far-away markets like Asia. Today we continue our series on the build-out of crude infrastructure in South Texas’s largest port and consider Corpus’s ability to load Suezmax-class vessels and maybe even Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs).