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.
A veritable flood of more than 3 MMb/d of new crude production from the US and Canada will come into the Houston region by 2015 via long awaited new pipeline infrastructure. The most immediate impact will be to back out light sweet crudes from the Gulf Coast region – as early as 2013.
Capacity utilization rates for small inland tank barges (10-30 MBbl) this year are sky high at 90-95 percent. Tank barges are being used to move crude oil shipped by rail from North Dakota and Canada to ports on the Mississippi River for transfer to Gulf Coast refineries.
<p>Natural gas prices at New England City Gates spiked up $6/MMBtu during a recent cold spell in November only to fall back $4/MMBtu last Friday (November 30, 2012) on forecasts of warmer weather.
<p>The Gulf Coast region is the biggest refining destination for the flood of new crude oil being produced domestically and in Canada. Large terminals are needed to receive, store, blend and redistribute this crude to refineries.</p>
<p>Tank barge utilization rates in US coastal and inland waterways are running at 80 to 90 percent of capacity this year.</p>
<p>The strength in the benchmark crudes (Brent and West Texas Intermediate - WTI) and motor gasoline (a.k.a., Reformulated Blendstock for Oxygenate Blending, or RBOB), when combined with the hockey stick of domestic NGL production volumes being up and to the right, have changed the landscap
<p>It is a vast understatement to say that the natural gas world is in a state of significant transformation in the United States. On the surface, the shale production story and its impact on supply, and by extension demand on a national basis seem profound as is, but the truly dr
<p>The changing US crude supply picture on the Gulf Coast region has already encouraged significant new infrastructure investment to bring crude to market by pipeline as well as logistics ingenuity to bring crude to market by rail.</p>
<p>The US Gulf Coast region hosts nearly half the nations refining capacity. Crude oil supply into the region will undergo a revolution in the next two years.</p>
<p>Natural gas wellhead freeze-off happens when outside temperatures drop below freezing in producing fields. . If the wellhead is not protected then water and other liquids in the gas can freeze and block the flow of gas.</p>
