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Early Access
Friday, 10/03/2025
Thursday, 10/02/2025
In the early 2000s, prices for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) were becoming increasingly disconnected from global fundamentals. WTI reflected conditions in the Midcontinent at the Cushing, OK, crude oil storage hub, where bottlenecks repeatedly distorted its value. In today’s RBN blog, we look at how the problem contributed to the creation of the Argus Sour Crude Index (ASCI) 16 years ago, how the index has evolved and whether it remains relevant today.
Analyst Insights
Analyst Insights are unique perspectives provided by RBN analysts about energy markets developments. The Insights may cover a wide range of information, such as industry trends, fundamentals, competitive landscape, or other market rumblings. These Insights are designed to be bite-size but punchy analysis so that readers can stay abreast of the most important market changes.
By John Abeln - Thursday, 10/02/2025 (3:30 pm)
Report Highlight: NATGAS Appalachia
Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line was granted a crucial authorization last week, bringing the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) one step closer to fruition. This project will allow the Williams Company pipeline to flow an incremental 400 MMcf/d to New York City and Long Island.
By Martin King - Thursday, 10/02/2025 (2:30 pm)
Waterborne crude oil exports from the expanded Trans Mountain Pipeline (TMX) averaged 453 Mb/d in September 2025 (rightmost stacked columns in chart below), a gain of 24 Mb/d versus August and an increase of 143 Mb/d from a year ago based on tanker tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.
Daily Energy Blog
Wednesday, 3/20/2013
When we described the quirky workings of the US renewable fuels mandates back in July and August of 2012 the topic was merely brain food for commodity market theorists and sleep deprived gasoline analysts. This month the market for big brother sounding “Renewable Identification Numbers” (RINS) - credited to refiners when they add ethanol to gasoline blends - is suddenly the hottest thing since sliced bread. The price of 2013 RINS shot from a few cnts/gal in January 2013 to an astronomical $1/gal on March 8, 2013. Earlier this week they were trading in the stratosphere, at about $0.70/gal. Today we look at what lies behind the current RIN furor.
Thursday, 8/09/2012
A couple of weeks back in “A Market of Contradictions: Ethanol Mandates, Motor Gasoline and the Blend Wall” we looked at how US refiners are on the hook to blend more and more ethanol into a diminishing pool of gasoline (the blend wall) under Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) legislation. Ethanol producers are losing 35 cnts/gal after the hottest July ever fried the corn harvest. Sinking ethanol production may not cover refiner’s needs. In response, refiners are turning to an arcane workaround called Renewable Identification Numbers (RINS). Today we'll peel back the red tape to see what is really going on.