RBN’s Daily Energy Blog and Insights sharpen your energy IQ through fundamentals-based analysis that makes sense of North America’s energy market dynamics.
If as appears likely, US regulators impose new rail tank car safety standards by the end of 2014 including the phasing out of older designs, the cost for a new car could be as much as $150,000. Retrofitting older designs to meet new standards could range between $20,000 and $60,000 per car.
For companies whose success depends on low-cost natural gas, finding ways to mitigate gas price risk is critical. Using financial hedges is one way; another (though far less common) is acquiring working interests in gas production assets—that is, buying a physical hedge.
Just over a week ago (July 3rd) Reuters reported that Enterprise Product Partners (EPD) sold their first 400 MBbl export cargo of condensate to Japanese trader Mitsui.
It isn’t often that a market measure simultaneously shrinks in quantity and gains in importance, but that is the case for crude oil imports into Gulf refineries this year.
If a company expects to consume large volumes of natural gas for decades to come, why not remove at least some price risk by acquiring a working interest in gas production assets?
The future pace of crude-by-rail growth in North America may depend on rulings expected by the end of 2014 from the US Department of Transport (DOT) concerning rail tank car designs mandated to carry crude oil safely.
As we said in Part One of this series, the production of NGLs has risen sharply in the past five years, and the pace of growth is only increasing. In response, the four leading fractionators in Mont Belvieu have been adding new capacity and planning more.
No, we aren’t talking about Colorado’s recent legalization of the “wacky weed”, but rather the high that the rush of light crudes is bringing to the refining industry in PADD IV, the Rockies region. While John Denver’s famous lyrics spoke of the magic of the Rocky Mountains, regional refine
The Crude Voyager is a weekly analysis of U.S. Gulf Coast loading activity that explains the ebbs and flows of crude loadings, destinations, and geopolitical issues impacting U.S. exports. It outlines the major paths for laden tankers hauling U.S. crude all over the world and reflects the change in tanker departures to the main regions that consume U.S. crude.
Ever-increasing production of natural gas liquids is driving another round of fractionation capacity expansions in Mont Belvieu, TX, which is—and will remain—the hub of US fractionation activity. But Mont Belvieu fractionators are not without competition.
The latest North Dakota Pipeline Authority (NDPA) data for April 2014 shows crude production in that State finally crossing the 1 MMb/d mark. That threshold was finally crossed after producers recovered from a harsh winter that shut in production and constrained new drilling.
