MPLX is wrapping up a three-part, $500 million plan to facilitate the pipeline transport of large volumes of field condensate and natural gasoline from the Marcellus and Utica plays to Midwest refineries, western Canadian heavy-crude shippers and other end users. But “wrapping up” may be the wrong phrase. In fact, MPLX sees its Cornerstone Pipeline, Utica Build-Out Projects and other elements of the company’s Midwest pipeline push as part of a larger and continuing effort to deal with remaining inefficiencies in the delivery of Marcellus/Utica liquids to market. Today we review what has been accomplished so far, and what expansions and enhancements to MPLX’s pipeline plan may be in the offing.

Plans are afoot to double and maybe triple the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) export capacity of the Pacific Northwest — British Columbia, Washington State and Oregon — giving the region an enhanced role in what has been a booming business. Volumes being shipped to Asia out of the Ferndale marine terminal in northwestern Washington State are at near-record levels, and AltaGas and Royal Vopak are building a 40-Mb/d (and expandable) export facility in northwestern BC that is planned to come online in early 2019. Further, Pembina may be only months away from committing to the construction of a 20-Mb/d LPG marine terminal, also in BC. Today we continue our series on the expanding role of Western Canada in LPG exports with a look at plans for new propane/butane marine-dock capacity in BC.

In the five years since the U.S. flipped from a net LPG importer to net LPG exporter, the vast majority of those exports have gone out from Gulf Coast marine terminals. That makes perfect sense. After all, Mont Belvieu, TX is North America’s main fractionation and storage center—most of the natural gas liquids produced in the U.S. are piped there to be fractionated into propane, butane and other “purity products.” But what’s also true is that a growing share of NGLs are produced and fractionated in the Northeast, that increasing export volumes are moving out of Sunoco Logistics Partners’ Marcus Hook, PA marine terminal, and that NGL pipeline capacity from the “wet” Marcellus and Utica production areas to Marcus Hook is about to increase significantly. Today we continue our review of the LPG export data with a look at propane and butane exports from East Coast marine terminals.

Anticipating renewed growth in natural gas and natural gas liquids production in the Marcellus and Utica plays, midstream companies active in the region are planning new gas processing plants and fractionators, as well as new NGL takeaway capacity and in-region NGL storage. And Shell Chemicals has made a Final Investment Decision to build a $6 billion, ethane-consuming steam cracker in western Pennsylvania by the early 2020s. In today’s blog, “Unleashed in the (North)East—New Gas Processing and Fractionation Capacity in Marcellus/Utica,” Housley Carr continues our series on on-going efforts by midstreamers and others to keep pace with NGL growth in the epicenter of U.S. gas and NGL production.

Every day, about 1.8 million barrels of NGLs, naphtha and other ethylene plant feedstocks are “cracked” to make both ethylene and an array of petrochemical byproducts. And every day, decisions are made for each steam cracker on which feedstock—or mix of them—would provide the plant’s owner with the highest margins. Within each petchem company, these decisions are optimized by staffs of analysts and technicians using sophisticated and complex mathematical models that consider every nuance of a specific ethylene plants’ physical capabilities. Fortunately for us mere mortals, it is possible to approximate these complex feedstock selection calculations for a “typical” flexible cracker using a relatively simple spreadsheet model. Today we continue our series on how the raw materials for ethylene plants are picked with an overview of RBN’s feedstock selection model, a review of feedstock margin trends, and an explanation of how the model also can be used to indicate future NGL and naphtha prices and to assess the prospects for various industry players.

The normal butane market was anything but normal the past few weeks. All’s back to square one now, but in the last week of 2016 the price for normal butane spiked to more than $1.20/gal from only $0.73/gal in November. The differential between isobutane and normal butane plummeted into record-shattering negative territory. And the margin from cracking normal butane to make ethylene and other products fell off the chart—literally, our PowerPoints had to be reworked to show how much the margin had fallen. What the heck went on there? Today, we discuss the recent upheaval, what may have caused it, and why things snapped back to normal so quickly.

U.S. propane inventories rose by an impressive 55 million barrels (MMbbl) during the spring/summer/fall of 2014, and the mild winter of 2014-15 left propane stocks at well-above-normal levels the following spring. Another impactful inventory build—53 MMbbl—occurred during 2015’s March-to-November stock-building season, leaving propane stocks at a record 104 MMbbl as the freakishly mild winter of 2015-16 started. But propane inventories grew much more slowly through the spring/summer/fall of 2016, due in part to rising exports, and—while stocks are high as this winter begins—even-higher exports and the possibility of real winter weather raise the specter of an especially big drop in stored volumes. In today’s blog we begin a series on the significance of propane inventory levels with a look at why propane stocks rose so much in the 2014 and 2015 stock-building seasons.