The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed Renewable Volume Obligations (RVOs) for 2026-27 did more than just set renewable fuel mandates for the next two years, they included dramatic shifts in the way that imported fuels and feedstocks are handled and raised the likelihood of higher compliance costs during a time in which the federal government has been focused on keeping prices under control. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the critical changes that will affect imported biofuels and feedstocks and the potential cost impact.
Daily Energy Blog
Friday, 6/27/2025
Category:
Refined Fuels
Follow That Dream - Choice of Well Tubing Plays a Key Role as Horizontal Laterals Extend Their Reach
Thursday, 6/26/2025
Category:
Crude Oil
Since its beginning in western Pennsylvania 166 years ago, the oil and gas industry has been on a relentless quest to unlock more hydrocarbons. And for years, the focus has been on drilling more productively, not just drilling more wells. The techniques that have evolved since the start of the Shale Revolution have led to rapid increases in the length of horizontal laterals, boosting initial production (IP) rates — a critical development but posing new challenges for drillers. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss why longer laterals in horizontal wells aren’t the answer in every shale play, the advantages of the two types of tubing used in those wells, and how they can help boost productivity.
Wednesday, 6/25/2025
Category:
Financial
The summer movie season opened with the latest — and reportedly last — entry in the Tom Cruise-propelled “Mission: Impossible” franchise called “The Final Reckoning.” That title reminded us that, to E&P executives, the commodity price crash at the onset of the pandemic in 2020 must have seemed like the final blow in a series of financial crises that brought many of their companies to the verge of bankruptcy. But in a dramatic, “Mission: Impossible”-style recovery, producers restored their battered balance sheets and won back investors by radically shifting cash allocations. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll review the rise of the new E&P hero — dividends — and analyze how producers apportioned cash flows in Q1 2025.
Tuesday, 6/24/2025
Category:
Natural Gas
For several years now, the biggest hurdle to natural gas production growth in the Marcellus/Utica was takeaway constraints — there simply wasn’t enough capacity on gas pipelines out of Appalachia to support a significant bump-up in regional output. Things have been changing though. The Mountain Valley Pipeline and a slew of expansion projects along Transco are allowing increasing volumes of gas to move to and through Virginia and the Carolinas. The proposed Borealis Pipeline across Ohio would enable up to 2 Bcf/d to move down the Texas Gas Transmission system to the Gulf Coast. And, as we discuss in today’s RBN blog, Kinder Morgan is planning several major projects in the Deep South — including the 2.1-Bcf/d Mississippi Crossing and 1.3-Bcf/d South System Expansion 4 projects — to move more gas into Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.
Monday, 6/23/2025
Category:
Financial
Energy-market risks abound. Israeli attacks on Iranian oil and gas infrastructure. The looming possibility of a global trade war. Up-and-down prices for WTI and Brent. Still, in the midst of all this doubt and instability, oil and gas producers continue to buy and sell major upstream assets in the U.S. — and gobble up entire companies — in ongoing efforts to grow their businesses, reshape their portfolios and/or reduce their debt. In today’s RBN blog, we continue our look at recent big-dollar deals in the U.S. oil and gas industry.
Friday, 6/20/2025
Category:
Crude Oil
The EPIC Crude Pipeline, which stretches from the prolific Permian Basin in West Texas to Corpus Christi, has operated above its original nameplate capacity for more than a year, with volumes rising in recent months. Owner EPIC Midstream in April sold its NGL pipeline to Phillips 66 for $2.2 billion and its Olefins Pipeline to Howard Energy Partners in December 2024. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss the EPIC Crude Pipeline and what might be ahead.
Wednesday, 6/18/2025
Category:
Financial
U.S. fuel supplier Sunoco announced in May that it has inked a US$9.1-billion agreement to buy Canada-based Parkland Corp., a move that would create the Americas’ largest independent fuel distributor. Sunoco would gain control of Parkland’s fleet of fueling stations and its valuable Burnaby refinery near Vancouver, BC. The deal is supported by Parkland’s largest shareholder and is slated to be voted on June 24. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss this deal and what it means for Canada’s only West Coast refiner.
Thursday, 6/19/2025
Category:
Crude Oil
It seems almost nothing is going to stop Western Canada’s crude oil production growth. But getting those incremental barrels to refiners and exporters will require more pipeline takeaway capacity, including expansions to Enbridge’s Mainline and Express systems, which should keep barrels flowing to key markets in the U.S. and avoid a capacity crunch. In today’s RBN blog, we consider how our outlook for Canadian production over the next several years stacks up against takeaway capacity and what additions will be needed to keep pace.
Today, we celebrate Juneteenth, which honors the end of slavery in the U.S. In observance of today’s holiday, we’ve given our analysts a break and are revisiting our June 6 blog on Western Canada’s crude oil production growth, which also serves as a preview of our upcoming School of Energy Canada. If you didn’t read it then, this is your opportunity to see what you missed.
Tuesday, 6/17/2025
Category:
Financial
The pace of multibillion-dollar acquisitions in the upstream sector may have eased a bit after a frenetic couple of years, but M&A among E&Ps is still happening. And, just as important, producers just coming off big deals are divesting assets that don’t fit their strategies, or reaching agreements to buy “bolt-on” acreage and production in key basins. There’s a lot of M&A “fun, fun, fun” going on, though many of the deals don’t make big headlines because there are only nine or 10 numbers after the dollar sign, not 11. In today’s RBN blog, we look at a variety of recent upstream M&A and divestment announcements and what they tell us about the production end of U.S. energy markets.
Monday, 6/16/2025
Category:
Natural Gas
The European Union (EU) has had to rethink and reconfigure major elements of its policies around natural gas since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Prior to the war, Russian volumes accounted for 45% of the EU’s imports of natural gas, nearly double the supply from second-place Norway, but Russian gas supplies have dropped considerably since then, impacting the global LNG market. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the EU’s continued efforts to reduce its reliance on Russia, how it’s trading supply risk for price risk, and what the changes could mean for U.S. LNG exporters.
Friday, 6/13/2025
Category:
Crude Oil
The 35-year dream of widening the Corpus Christi Ship Channel and deepening it to 54 feet from the old 47 feet is at long last a reality. The $625 million project also has spurred marine-terminal owners in Corpus Christi and Ingleside to undertake — or at least consider — major dock and dredging projects that would enable them to make full use of the deeper 30-mile channel. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the newly completed channel-dredging project, related terminal improvements, and what they all mean for crude oil exporting economics in Corpus Christi.
Thursday, 6/12/2025
Category:
Financial
Buoyed in part by early optimism about the Trump administration’s potentially positive impact on the economy and the oil and gas industry, the WTI spot oil price reached a five-month high of nearly $76/bbl in January. But the optimism and oil prices have steadily eroded due to the impact of tariffs, trade wars and stubborn oilfield service inflation. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at the impact of the January price spike on Q1 2025 earnings and analyze the potential impact of a much lower price scenario in Q2 2025.
Wednesday, 6/11/2025
Category:
Natural Gas Liquids
It looks like the U.S. ethane market may have just dodged a bullet. Since late May, the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security effectively banned ethane exports to China, the destination for two-thirds of the ethane sent out of Gulf Coast docks — about 225 Mb/d in 2024. Ethane has become a bargaining chip in U.S.-China negotiations over rare earths and tariffs, in part because China has no alternative source of waterborne ethane feedstock for its petchems. But playing the ethane card presented a potential problem for the U.S. too. While China isn’t the only export market for U.S. ethane, there are very limited other destinations for the volumes they typically take. The need to find a home for those volumes could have required significantly more “rejection” of ethane into natural gas at U.S. gas processing plants — i.e., selling ethane for its fuel value instead of recovering it for petchems or export. In today’s RBN blog, we examine the ethane export issue, which remains in flux as part of the broader U.S.-China trade agreement still being finalized.
Tuesday, 6/10/2025
Category:
Natural Gas
Marcellus/Utica natural gas production grew by leaps and bounds in the 2010s, but the pace of growth has slowed dramatically in recent years, mostly due to takeaway constraints. Finally, the prospects for renewed growth are improving. New pipeline capacity out of Appalachia is coming online — especially to the booming Southeast, and maybe the Gulf Coast too. New LNG export capacity is about to be commercialized. And a lot of new gas-fired generating capacity — much of it tied to planned data centers — is under development within (or very near) the Marcellus/Utica region. In today’s RBN blog, we examine the three big gas-demand drivers behind the shale play’s impending renewal.
Monday, 6/09/2025
Category:
Crude Oil
There’s been a surge in E&P interest in the Utica Shale’s volatile oil window the past couple of years, and EOG Resources has been particularly optimistic about its potential for producing large volumes of condensate, the lightest of superlight crude oils. A few days ago, EOG — known for growing its business organically, not via M&A — announced one of the largest acquisitions of the year so far: the planned purchase of Encino Acquisition Partners (EAP), the Utica’s #1 condensate producer by far, for $5.6 billion, including the assumption of EAP’s debt. As we discuss in today’s RBN blog, the deal will give EOG its third “foundational” focus area (the others are the Eagle Ford and the Permian's Delaware Basin) and supports the view that the Utica really is an up-and-comer.
