It’s The End of Summer in Butane Blendingville; Normal Butane Prices Moving Higher

Normal butane is an important gasoline blendstock, with a great combination of high octane and relatively low cost. It also has a high Reid vapor pressure, or RVP, which is a good news/bad news kind of thing because while regulators allow higher-RVP gasoline — that is, gasoline with higher levels of butane — to be sold during the colder months of the year, they forbid its sale during the warmer months, thereby forcing butane levels in gasoline to be kept to a minimum. As we discuss in today’s RBN blog, air-quality regulations and seasonal shifts in butane blending may add complexity to gasoline production and marketing, but they also create opportunities to increase gasoline supply and earn substantially larger profits through much of the year. 

We are rapidly approaching September 15, when summer blend motor gasoline changes over to winter blend, allowing the increased use of high vapor pressure normal butane in the blending.  However, the spread between Reformulated Blendstock for Oxygenate Blending (RBOB, the benchmark unleaded gasoline) and normal butane was down to 85 cents/gal as of the end of August, reducing the incentive to blend as much butane into motor gasoline as possible to its lowest level in recent years.  Sure, 85 cents/gal is still 85 cents.  But what impact might that smaller RBOB/normal butane spread and other market factors have on butane exports?  Today we examine the state of the gasoline blending and normal butane markets, and the effect that current dynamics –– a gasoline glut and strong butane prices among them –– ­­may have.

Next time you fill up with regular; spare a thought for what the product went through to make it into your tank. Before you got a chance to put the pedal to the metal, the tiger in your tank had to treat a digestive problem that was causing too much gas. It was all in honor of something called Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) regulations. Today we open the window on the issue to air the pungent details. 

RVP stands for "Reid Vapor Pressure" a measure of gasoline volatility indicated in pounds per square inch (PSI) at 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The higher a gasoline's RVP the more quickly it evaporates. The RVP for gasoline should always be below normal atmospheric pressure or 14.7 PSI. If the RVP gets higher than 14.7-PSI fuel might evaporate in the gas tank on a hot day resulting in a vapor locked engine (car won’t start) or worse yet, an explosion. At the same time you need a certain RVP level in the winter when it gets cold or your car won’t start because the fuel won’t vaporize in the carburetor.