Don’t Stop Believin’ — Finding Growth in the Next Phase of the U.S. Energy Evolution

The U.S. energy industry is continuously evolving. Over the past two decades, we’ve witnessed the Shale Revolution, the rapid buildout of pipelines and export terminals, and a COVID-induced market collapse, followed by a renewed focus on capital discipline. Each phase reshaped where investment flowed and what types of projects made economic sense. Today, the lessons of the past are influencing investment decisions of the future. The next wave of energy infrastructure isn’t being driven by producers racing to move ever-increasing volumes to market. Instead, demand is increasingly determining where capital will be deployed and that has major implications for what the next phase of buildout will look like. That’s the subject of today’s RBN blog and the focus of our upcoming School of Energy: Foundations, set for September 9-10 in Houston. Fair warning: Today’s blog serves as an unabashed advertorial for the conference.

For much of the Shale Era, new infrastructure was developed in response to growing supplies.  Producers experimented with drilling and completion techniques to enhance the economics of developing unconventional plays and cracked the code on massive deposits around the country. As production exceeded existing pipeline or processing capacity, prices became dislocated, and infrastructure developers responded by building additional capacity to handle it all. New gathering and processing systems fed new pipelines, which fed new downstream infrastructure like fractionation, refining capacity, and petchems. As the surging supply satiated domestic demand, export docks were built and incremental supply moved increasingly to international markets. That “supply push” model defined much of the industry’s growth over the past 20 years, but markets evolve.

The prevalence of that model and the days of “drill, baby, drill” died with the COVID pandemic. As we’ve regularly documented, years of E&P underperformance were punctuated when prices tanked. In the years that followed, U.S. producers changed how they approached capital allocation. Rather than chasing production growth at almost any cost, E&Ps began to increasingly emphasize returns, cash flow, operational efficiency and shareholder value. Consolidation accelerated throughout the upstream, and operators became far more selective about where — and how quickly — they develop acreage. The result is a markedly different infrastructure landscape. Production continues to grow in many areas, but generally not at the explosive pace that routinely overwhelmed infrastructure during the first decade of the Shale Revolution. And with that more calculated growth profile, the days of massive and persistent price discounts are fading, reducing the motivation for producers to risk signing up for the big chunks of capacity necessary to underwrite large pipeline projects. It’s also worth noting that another headwind to large projects is the continued challenges around permitting, particularly for interstate projects. 

But while the push of supply has moderated, demand continues to grow. Let’s consider natural gas. While LNG is still by far the most important factor that will impact the U.S. market over the foreseeable future, sucking a huge amount of gas to the Gulf Coast, AI and the natural gas-fired generation that will power new data centers has quickly become one of the most dynamic influences. Large-scale AI facilities require enormous amounts of reliable power, often beyond what existing electric systems were designed to provide. Meeting that demand increasingly means new gas‑fired generation that can be built very quickly, expanded electric transmission infrastructure, and additional gas pipeline capacity

But developing new generation in response to new data center projects can be tricky. Utilities may not have the same capacity to sign long-term firm transportation contracts as large industrial users, and they don’t want to risk developing new power plants and transmission infrastructure in response to data centers that may either not exist or use less power in several decades. 

As a result, a growing number of midstream projects are smaller, incremental solutions built toward specific downstream markets. And that shift to demand-pull rather than supply-push changes a lot about how and which projects get sanctioned. Anticipating which projects will make sense requires an understanding of the fundamental forces impacting supply and demand, as well as the basics of gas processing and pipelines. Those connections are exactly what School of Energy: Foundation is designed to teach.

Natural gas isn’t the only commodity experiencing this transition. NGLs continue to represent one of the industry’s strongest growth stories, but for reasons that differ substantially from earlier years. Production continues to increase alongside crude oil and natural gas development, while domestic demand has remained comparatively stable. As a result, export markets have become critically important for balancing the U.S. NGL market. That means future investment opportunities increasingly center around fractionation, storage, marine terminals and export logistics. At School of Energy: Foundation, we’ll walk attendees through those relationships — from frac spreads and y-grade economics to petrochemical feedstocks and export pricing — showing how each component influences the others.

Crude oil tells a similar story. Production growth has moderated considerably compared with the industry’s rapid expansion during the 2010s, yet U.S. crude continues finding new customers around the world. Rather than existing largely as a closed domestic system, U.S. producers increasingly compete within a global marketplace where international supply disruptions, refinery demand, shipping logistics and geopolitics all influence pricing and infrastructure requirements. That means understanding future crude infrastructure requires looking well beyond drilling activity alone to include pipeline utilization, export terminals, refinery economics and international demand — all critical pieces of the investment puzzle.

The common thread connecting each of these examples is that understanding any one market increasingly requires knowledge of several others. It’s one of the defining characteristics of today’s energy landscape: Each decision creates secondary and tertiary effects throughout the value chain. Connecting those dots is considerably more valuable than simply tracking today’s production numbers or commodity prices. 

That’s also why School of Energy: Foundations is structured differently than many industry conferences. Rather than focusing exclusively on current events or headline forecasts, the course emphasizes market fundamentals and practical analytical tools that participants can continue using long after the conference ends. Throughout the two-day program, attendees will work through hands-on Excel models, examine real-world case studies and hear directly from RBN/Novi Labs analysts and industry experts covering crude oil, natural gas, LNG, NGLs, refined products and renewable fuels.

Our objective isn’t simply to explain today’s market. It’s to help attendees build a framework for understanding tomorrow’s. Because today’s opportunities won’t necessarily emerge where they did yesterday. The next generation of successful energy projects will increasingly be determined by where demand develops, how markets connect and which companies are best positioned to respond. Recognizing those shifts before they become obvious can make all the difference. That’s the journey we’ll take together.

The conference will be held September 9-10 at the Thompson Hotel in Houston. Over the two-day, in-person course, we won’t just tell you what’s happening, we’ll explain why markets behave the way they do and equip you with the tools to track key trends yourself. If you’re not familiar with the School of Energy, the conference is structured more like a classroom experience, assessing current developments through the lens of hands-on, practical instruction and training. This approach sets you up to monitor these markets, identify opportunities and understand the potential impacts of taking action.