The U.S. midstream sector is clamoring to build takeaway pipelines for ballooning natural gas production volumes in the Permian Basin and get ahead of any developing takeaway capacity constraints. In the past year, a number of companies have floated plans for moving Permian gas supply east to the Gulf Coast, spurred on by two primary factors — expectations for accelerated supply growth in West Texas; and on the other end, emerging demand from a combination of LNG export facilities being developed on the Texas and Louisiana coasts, and the slew of export pipeline projects targeting growing industrial and gas-fired power generation demand in Mexico. These expansion projects are in a bit of a horse race, not just to beat the clock on potential transportation constraints, but also competing against an increasingly larger field to secure shipper commitments and make it to completion. Among the factors affecting their progress will be their in-service dates and their destination markets. Today, we provide an update on these competing pipeline projects, including the newest entrant, Tellurian’s Permian Global Access Pipeline.
Daily Energy Blog
The Alberta natural gas market in Western Canada is in the midst of a seismic shift. Regional gas supply growth is accelerating. At the same time, export demand is eroding, but domestic demand — particularly from gas-fired power generation and oil-sands development — is on the rise. The incremental production along with the move toward intra-provincial demand has reconfigured flows and strained TransCanada’s infrastructure in the region. These factors resulted in extreme price volatility this past fall, a dynamic that’s likely to resurface in the New Year during low-demand times. Today, we continue our analysis of the Western Canadian gas market with a look at the changing transportation and flow dynamics in Alberta.
After being left for dead for more than five years, natural gas production in the greater Haynesville region has been surging upward — from about 5.7 Bcf/d this time last year to more than 7 Bcf/d today, an increase of 25% during 2017. Much of this growth has been coming from a new cast of characters, employing different technologies and different strategies than the first wave of Haynesville pioneers that established the play back in 2008, then abandoned it in 2012. But a couple of big challenges face the Haynesville. Today, we begin an examination of the Haynesville that will take us from production trends through producer strategies and finally into detailed calculations of production economics for the play.
Western Canadian natural gas producers are increasingly facing oversupply conditions and price volatility. While competition and pushback from growing U.S. shale gas supply continues to be a factor, producers are now also contending with fresh problems closer to home — namely transportation constraints right where production is growing the most, in central Alberta. This fall, the Alberta market experienced extreme bottlenecks that left production stranded and sent area gas prices reeling. The ramp-up of winter heating demand has since helped ease the constraints, but the problems are likely to return in the spring when demand is lower, leaving producers exposed to the risk of severe price weakness again in 2018 and limited in their ability to grow supply. Today, we continue our look at what’s behind the local constraints and the implications for production growth and prices in Western Canada.
This winter will be the last go-round for ISO New England’s Winter Reliability Program, under which the electric-grid operator in the natural gas pipeline-challenged region provides financial incentives to dual-fuel power plants if they stockpile fuel oil or LNG as a backup fuel. This coming spring, a long-planned “pay-for-performance” regime will go into effect, and gas-fired generators that can’t meet their commitments to provide power during high-demand periods — such as the polar vortex cold snaps that hit the Northeast in early 2014 — will pay potentially significant penalties. Today, we discuss the pitfalls that the pipeline capacity-challenged region may encounter as its power sector becomes increasingly gas-dependent.
Western Canadian natural gas producers have long battled unrelenting competition from growing shale gas supply in the U.S. But recent price action at AECO — Canada’s benchmark natural gas hub in Alberta — suggests market conditions there have gone from bad to worse. AECO prices in recent months have fallen to the lowest levels in more than a decade, even dropping below zero at one point in intraday trading this fall. Fundamentals are increasingly bearish, given that Canadian gas production has rebounded to the highest level in close to 10 years, storage there is near to five-year highs and exports are facing further cutbacks as U.S. gas supply is itself at record highs. In addition, producers are contending with a number of transportation issues closer to home. Today, we begin a look at the factors affecting the Western Canadian gas market.
The clock is ticking for international shipping companies, cruise lines and others to determine how they will meet the much more stringent standard for bunker fuel sulfur content that will kick in just over two years from now. While many shipowners will likely meet the International Marine Organization’s 0.5% sulfur cap in January 2020 by shifting to low-sulfur marine distillate or a heavy fuel oil/distillate blend, a smaller number are investing in ships fueled by LNG. LNG easily complies with the sulfur cap, and while it costs more than high-sulfur HFO — the bunker that currently dominates world shipping — it is less expensive than the low-sulfur distillate and HFO/distillate blends that will be needed to meet the new standard. But there are catches with LNG, including the need to dedicate more onboard space for fuel tanks and (even more importantly) the lack of LNG fueling infrastructure in a number of ports. Today, we discuss the short and long-term outlook for LNG as a marine fuel.
Just a month ago, the CME/NYMEX Henry Hub prompt natural gas futures contract was trading at a six-month high of $3.21/MMBtu (on November 10), and the U.S. gas storage inventory was at a three-year low, setting the stage for a bullish winter — assuming normal wintry weather. Since then, the prompt-month contract has tumbled about 50 cents to a settle of $2.715/MMBtu as of this Wednesday. In that time, temperatures fell across the country and seasonal demand for heating homes and businesses kicked in, and LNG exports ticked up slightly. But supply also grew by a lot, with natural gas production surging by 1.0 Bcf/d since then to a new record high of 76.9 Bcf/d just this past Monday. How did the fundamentals shake out in November, and what do current fundamentals mean for the balance of winter? Today, we reconcile these latest shifts in gas market fundamentals.
Several large-scale gas pipeline expansions targeting the New England and New York City markets have been sidelined in the past year, either due to insufficient financial backing or the challenges of regulatory rigmarole in the region. But in recent weeks, a couple of smaller-scale projects along existing rights-of-way have managed to cross the finish line, allowing incremental gas supplies to trickle into the region. The new pipeline capacity will provide natural gas utilities and power generators in the region with greater access to additional gas supplies from the nearby Marcellus Shale this winter. Today, we look at recent capacity additions and their potential impacts.
U.S. trucking companies, trash haulers and transit agencies continue to invest in new vehicles fueled by compressed natural gas or liquefied natural gas, in part to meet corporate or agency carbon-footprint goals. But the economic rationale for switching trucks and buses from diesel to CNG or LNG is weaker than it was a few years ago, when diesel cost two-thirds more than natural gas fuels on a per-BTU basis — prices for diesel, CNG and LNG are now in the same ballpark. Also, developing regional or national networks of CNG/LNG fueling stations doesn’t come cheap. Today, we discuss the growing use of natural gas in trucks and buses — and threats to that trend.
Producers in the Bakken region made substantial progress in 2014-15 in reducing the volume and percentage of gas that was flared or burned off, but those gains stalled in 2016, and flaring has actually been on the rise through much of 2017. Due to an unfortunate confluence of events (gas processing plant and pipeline issues among them), 16% of the gas produced in the Bakken in September was flared, marking the first time producers failed to meet the state’s ratcheting-down target for gas burn-offs. The October and November flaring numbers are expected to improve, but there are worries that without more processing capacity, Bakken producers will have trouble achieving the North Dakota flaring target when it drops to 12% (from the current 15%) in November 2018. Today, we discuss recent developments in Bakken gas production, gas flaring and gas-related infrastructure.
With Lower-48 natural gas production at record highs and averaging more than 5.0 Bcf/d higher than this time last year, LNG export demand will be all the more critical this winter and the rest of 2018 in order to balance the U.S. gas market. Deliveries to Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG facility (SPL) are above 3.0 Bcf/d. Dominion Energy’s Cove Point LNG is due to add nearly 0.8 Bcf/d of export capacity and begin exporting commissioning cargoes any day now. Two other projects — Elba Island LNG and Freeport LNG — are due online before the end of 2018, while another high-capacity project, Cameron LNG, faces delays. These facilities will increase baseload demand for gas in the new year, but will it be enough, and how will it impact gas pipeline flows upstream? Today, we provide an update on the timing and potential impacts of new export LNG capacity over the next year.
Market forces are driving an overhaul of power generation capacity in Texas — the largest electricity-consumer in the U.S. Oversupply and low power prices have increased competition for the state’s power generators, forcing them to shut down older or less efficient plants or plants burning more expensive fuels. Just last month, Vistra Energy — the state’s largest provider of coal-fired generation — announced plans to shut down more than 4.0 GW of coal-fired generation capacity by early 2018, the equivalent of nearly one-fifth of the state’s total coal-fired generation capacity as of August (2017). At the same time, generation capacity for natural gas, wind and solar-sourced power are on the rise. Today, we look at the latest power generation trends in Texas and their potential effects on gas demand.
Mexico’s natural gas supply situation is in a state of flux, to say the least. Gas production within Mexico continues to decline, but there’s hope it can rebound in the country’s Burgos Shale region. Gas demand is rising fast, and new gas pipelines are being built to deliver Permian and other U.S. gas to new Mexican power plants. At the same time, though, delays in completing some of these new pipes have forced Mexico’s electricity authority to turn to LNG imports to keep gas supply and demand in balance. And yet, plans are afoot to export LNG to Asia from Mexico’s west coast by the early 2020s — gas that, by the way, would initially originate in Texas. Today, we explore recent developments in the Mexican gas arena.
The CME/NYMEX Henry Hub prompt natural gas futures contract last week settled at $3.213/MMBtu, the highest daily settlement since late May 2017. Despite natural gas production climbing nearly 3.0 Bcf/d over the past couple of months to record highs, the U.S. gas supply and demand balance has tightened considerably in recent weeks, particularly relative to last year at this time. Moreover, U.S. gas storage inventory has remained below year-ago levels and also moved below the five-year average level in recent weeks. That’s because gas demand has managed to more than offset the incremental supply in the market. How did that happen and what can it tell us about what to expect this winter? Today, we analyze recent shifts in gas market fundamentals.
