The crude oil hub in Cushing, OK, is larger and grabs the headlines, but don’t you forget about the Patoka hub in south-central Illinois. It plays critically important roles in receiving Western Canadian, Bakken, and other crude, distributing it to a slew of Midwestern refineries, and directing oil south to the Gulf Coast on the Energy Transfer Crude Oil Pipeline to Nederland, TX — and soon on Capline to St. James, LA, when reversed flows on that large-bore pipe begin in early 2022. Better still, there are great stories behind the development of the Patoka storage and distribution hub and how it works. Today, we begin a series on the second-largest crude oil hub in PADD 2 and why, with the upcoming Capline reversal and other changes, the hub is more relevant than ever.
The Cushing hub is, in many ways, the center of the U.S. crude oil universe. It has 94 MMbbl of crude oil storage capacity in 350-plus aboveground tanks, an array of pipelines into and out of Cushing, and a maze of interconnecting pipes within the hub, which help to give owners and operators there degrees of flexibility and optionality unavailable in any other crude oil market center. As if that weren’t enough to establish Cushing’s energy-market cred, prices at the hub serve as the reference price for all of the crude produced in the U.S. — and given the role that U.S. oil has assumed on the global stage, one of the most important determinants of global crude oil pricing. In other words, there’s a book’s-worth of things you should know about Cushing, which is why RBN recently published The Cushing Playbook.
To truly understand Cushing — what it does and how it works — you need to know the hub’s assets and how they fit together. RBN’s Cushing Crude Oil Playbook provides the first one-stop, comprehensive guide to the hub’s assets.
As readers of “the Playbook” know, Cushing started out as a crude oil production and refining center — by one account, as many as 50 small refineries (and tankage to support them) were in operation in or near the town by the 1930s. By the 1960s and ‘70s, most of the refiners had long since been shuttered, but by then Cushing’s central location between Midcontinent oil production, the big refineries along the Gulf Coast, and the emerging refinery centers in the Midwest made it a natural place to build more storage and more inbound and outbound pipelines. Cushing’s central location and robust infrastructure in 1983 led the New York Mercantile Exchange (now CME/NYMEX) to select Cushing as the delivery point for NYMEX’s futures contract for West Texas Intermediate (WTI).
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About the song
“Don’t You (Forget About Me)” was written by Keith Forsey and Steve Schiff. The song, performed by Simple Minds, is the first track on side one of the soundtrack album for The Breakfast Club. The song appears in the opening and closing scenes of John Hughes’s hit film. Keith Forsey, who was producing the music for the film, originally pitched the tune to Bryan Ferry, Billy Idol and Corey Hart, who all passed on it. According to Simple Minds lead singer Jim Kerr, his band initially did not want to do the song but were persuaded to do it by Chrissie Hynde (Kerr’s wife at the time) and A&M Records. The song was released as a single in February 1985 and went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles and Mainstream Rock Singles charts. It was later included on Simple Minds’ 1992 best-of-collection album, Glittering Prize 81/92. The video of “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” received heavy rotation on MTV at the time. Personnel on the record were: Jim Kerr (lead vocals), Charlie Burchill (guitar, keyboards), Mick MacNeil (keyboards), John Giblin, Derek Forbes (bass), and Mike Ogletree, Kenny Hyslop, Mel Gaynor (drums).
The Breakfast Club soundtrack album as recorded in 1984 and produced by Keith Forsey. Released in February 1985, the album went to #17 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. The album also featured cuts by Forsey, Elizabeth Daily, Wang Chung and Karla DeVito. “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” was the only single released from the LP.
Simple Minds is a Scottish rock band formed in Glasgow in 1977. Twenty-one members have passed through the band since its formation. They have released 21 studio albums, 12 live albums, 10 compilation albums, seven EPs, and 67 singles. They have won two ASCAP Pop Music Awards and an Ivor Novello Award. The band continues to record and tour and finished their latest tour in the UK in July 2024. Simple Minds will release a 40th anniversary, four-CD box set of their album Sparkle in the Rain in November.
"About the Song" -- written by Mickey McMahan , RBN Director of Musicology
