Daily Energy Blog

The high-tech space programs of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Sir Richard Branson may seem far removed from the down-to-earth business of producing and processing hydrocarbons. In fact, however, the multibillion-dollar efforts by SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic to normalize space travel — and maybe even put the first men and women on Mars! — depend at least in part on some pretty basic oil and gas products, including regular jet fuel, highly refined kerosene, and LNG. Oh, and hydrogen too — or, more specifically, the liquid form of the fuel that has recently caught the attention of a number of old-school energy companies. In today’s blog, we look at what’s propelling the latest generation of space vehicles.

If you’re a relative newcomer to the energy industry, the subject of natural gas storage might make your eyes glaze over — the sector is often treated as a backwater by traders and investors focused on liquid hydrocarbons. But it wasn’t always so. In the decades leading up to the early 2000s, the U.S. gas market underwent a series of fundamental changes, each spurring the development of new storage capacity, first in the Northeast, then the Midwest, and finally along the Gulf Coast. Along the way, the primary use of storage — balancing seasonal swings in gas demand — remained consistent, but there was also a wild-and-woolly period in the mid-2000s that was rife with meme-stock-like trading frenzy. It’s hard to say for sure, but we may be on the verge of needing still more gas storage capacity. In today’s blog, we’ll discuss the history and nature of U.S. natural gas storage to give context on what the future might hold.

The gas that emerges from wells in U.S. shale plays differs widely in its characteristics and quality. In the aptly named “dry” Marcellus in northeastern Pennsylvania, the gas is almost all methane, with only minute volumes of NGLs and contaminants, and requires minimal treatment before it’s fed into transmission pipelines. At the other end of the spectrum, the associated gas from a subset of crude-oil-focused wells in the Permian has high levels of hydrogen sulfide (a potentially deadly chemical) and carbon dioxide (a potent greenhouse gas), as well as a lot of NGLs. If the H₂S level in the gas is relatively low, it can be removed from the gas stream onsite with a chemical “scavenger,” but higher levels of H₂S quickly make that method prohibitively expensive. Another alternative, an onsite amine treatment facility, is more economical for removing higher levels of H₂S — and it removes CO₂ as well — but air permits typically limit how much can be flared off, requiring the costly and time-consuming development of acid-gas injection wells. Yet another, more centralized approach to dealing with H₂S and CO₂ — one that permanently stores large volumes of both deep underground — is being implemented over the next few weeks in southeastern New Mexico, as we discuss in today’s blog.

It’s been a while since the Appalachian natural gas market has looked this bullish. Outright cash prices at the Eastern Gas South hub are at multi-year highs. Regional storage inventories are sitting low, setting the stage for supply shortages and still higher prices this winter. But the potential for severe takeaway constraints and basis meltdowns are lurking, and by next year, they could become regular features of the market again like they were in the 2016-17 timeframe, or worse — at least in the spring and fall when Northeast demand is lowest. Regional gas production is still being affected by maintenance and has been somewhat volatile lately as a result, but it averaged 34.5 Bcf/d in June, just 300 MMcf/d shy of the December 2020 record. What’s more, at current forward curve prices, supply output could surpass previous highs by next spring and grow by ~ 5 Bcf/d (15%) by 2023. Outbound flows set their own record highs this spring, running at over 90% of takeaway capacity, and will head higher, which means that spare exit capacity for supply needing to leave the region is shrinking. The handful of planned takeaway expansions that remain are facing environmental pushback and permitting delays, and the few that are targeting completion in the next year may not be enough. Today, we provide the highlights of the latest forecast from our new NATGAS Appalachia report.

Usually when we write about natural gas markets in the Western third of the U.S., we spotlight the Permian Basin and its Waha gas hub. The focus on Waha has been for good reason, as the last three years have been nothing if not exciting in the Permian’s primary gas market. The basin’s huge volume of associated gas production and Waha’s volatility and deeply negative basis — even negative absolute prices — have made the West Texas market eminently watchable. Though a flurry of new pipelines out of the Permian have helped tame the market somewhat recently and driven Waha to the point of positive basis on its best days, the markets west of the Permian are a different story. They have seen very little in the way of new gas infrastructure, and the constrained inbound pipeline capacity has recently driven prices in the Desert Southwest to some incredible premiums. In today’s blog, we take a look at the gas markets there.

Western Canada’s Montney-sourced natural gas production has been on a remarkable upward trajectory in the past decade. Most of this growth has been focused in one province: British Columbia. However, that progress has not come without difficulty. A key challenge during BC’s gas boom has been providing sufficient pipeline takeaway capacity — the hurdles include the BC Montney’s remoteness, various regulatory impediments, and the unique geologic nature of the play. For this amazing gas supply growth story to continue well into the future, more pipeline capacity needs to be constructed. In our concluding blog on the Montney, we discuss recent pipeline developments and the challenges still ahead.

Appetite for new North American LNG export capacity had been waning already when COVID-19 brought it to a screeching halt. The global gas market was expected to be well-oversupplied through the mid-2020s as U.S. liquefaction capacity additions, combined with supply growth from Australian LNG projects, were far outpacing any increase in demand. However, the past year or so has proven how quickly things can swing from oversupplied to undersupplied. The extended run of high global gas prices is bringing renewed interest in expanding North American LNG export capacity. Although COVID dashed the prospects of many LNG projects, a handful have emerged from the morass of the past year stronger and with a clearer path to FID than ever before. Those that remain will be better positioned if they can navigate four emerging trends that are key for offtaker agreements in the post-COVID era: shorter contract terms, increased pricing or deal-structure diversity, reduced environmental impact, and a prioritization of brownfield expansions or phased greenfield projects. Today, we conclude the series on the status of the second wave of LNG projects.