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.
With the crude to natural gas price ratio (crude in $/Bbl divided by gas in $/MMbtu) continuing in historically high territory many energy companies are looking for more opportunities to shift from producing cheap gas to producing premium-price oil.
A dramatic increase in crude-by-rail shipments over the past two years as well as surging lease rates for hard to come by tank cars encouraged an 18 month backlog of new orders – even while crude shipments only represent a small fraction of total rail carloads.
Last month the Energy Information Administration (EIA) debuted a new monthly report detailing oil and gas drilling productivity in six of the largest US production basins.
If you add up the numbers since the start of 2012 just under 2 MMb/d of transport capacity has been added to bring crude into the Texas Gulf Coast refining region. In the next two years (2014 and 2015) we expect another 2.1 MMb/d of crude pipeline and rail transport capacity to be added.
The oil and gas pipeline industry depends on “Pigs” (pipeline integrity gauges) to verify pipelines. They help avoid leaks, fractures and costly unscheduled service interruptions.
Bakken producer wellhead netbacks now favor shipping crude to the East Coast by rail. That is because Brent crude prices are trading more than $13/Bbl above WTI and nearly $11/Bbl higher than Light Louisiana Sweet crude at the Gulf Coast (October 30, 2013).
With the electric power sector in many other states turning to natural gas-fired generation to replace retired coal and nuclear capacity, gas interests were understandably optimistic the same would happen in California when the plan to retire the 2,200-MW San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SO
With Brent premiums hovering close to $10/Bbl versus West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude in the past month, the netbacks for Bakken producers shipping crude by rail to the East or West Coast are higher than they are for pipeline movements to Cushing or the Gulf Coast.
NATGAS Billboard is a daily, early morning email and report that provides an up-to-the-minute view of the natural gas market outlook, including storage injections/withdrawals and price. Billboard’s models incorporate pipeline flow data, weather models, electricity demand data and more.
Supplies from the three main branches of the US condensate family are increasing faster than demand can keep up. Field condensate production from shale basins is nearing 1 MMb/d - headed to 1.6 MMb/d by 2018.
Several large deep-water terminals located strategically on Caribbean islands play an important role in the international fuel oil trade.
