RBN Energy
Early Access
Friday, 9/26/2025
Thursday, 9/25/2025
The popularity of weather derivatives has ebbed and flowed since their introduction in the late 1990s but trading activity has rebounded in recent years as the trading community has increasingly begun to reassess the need to hedge weather-related risks — everything from high temperatures and rainfall levels to power prices and cooling demand. In today’s RBN blog, we examine the role of weather derivatives, how they are used to hedge risk, and why they may be becoming increasingly important to the energy industry.
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 Jeremy Meier - Friday, 9/26/2025 (3:00 pm)
US oil and gas rig count climbed to 549 rigs for the week ending September 26, an increase of seven rigs vs. a week ago and the largest gain since July according to Baker Hughes data.
By Jason Lindquist - Friday, 9/26/2025 (10:00 am)
Report Highlight: Hydrogen Billboard
Low-carbon steel that utilizes green hydrogen in the production process will be used in Microsoft data centers under an agreement announced this week with Swedish steelmaker Stegra.
Daily Energy Blog
Sunday, 7/06/2014
Category:
Crude Oil
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 refiners have found elation in recent years as both domestic and readily accessible Western Canadian production increased, stranding crude supplies, putting downward pressure on prices and lifting their margins sky high. Today we examine how this has impacted the economics of the region and incentivized investment.
Wednesday, 7/02/2014
Category:
Natural Gas Liquids
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. Huge increases in fractionator capacity are also coming on-line in Appalachia to handle the rising volumes of natural gas liquids (NGLs) coming out of the Marcellus and Utica. Mont Belvieu may be king of fractionation, but others want a share of the kingdom. Today we update the ongoing NGL production boom and plans to add fractionation capacity in Mont Belvieu and NGL-related export capability nearby.
Tuesday, 7/01/2014
Category:
Crude Oil
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. But while production continues to grow and is expected to reach 1.7 MMb/d by the end of 2019, producer crude takeaway preferences appear to be changing. NDPA data shows an 8 percent reduction in rail shipments out of North Dakota since November 2013. Today we investigate the shift away from rail transportation.
Monday, 6/30/2014
Category:
Natural Gas
With U.S. natural gas production continuing to hit all-time records, the big question for the gas market is demand. Where is all that gas going to go? Well, we are pretty sure that most of the supply growth will be absorbed by the triad of new gas fired power generation, industrial demand and exports. The funny thing is that most of the volumes associated with these demand sources are located in one region – the southeastern U.S., with a heavy concentration of demand in Louisiana, home of the Henry Hub. This shift is turning what was a major supply area into an epicenter of natural gas demand, with the need for extensive new transportation paths into, rather than out of, the region. Today, we explore the implications of this transformation.
Sunday, 6/29/2014
Category:
Crude Oil
Back In the 1980s and 90’s, significant crude imports began to make up for declining US domestic production. During that era supertankers delivering crude to the Gulf Coast provided a kind of floating storage buffer that could absorb downstream disruptions in supply and demand. Nowadays Gulf Coast refineries are increasingly being supplied with domestic crude by pipeline. Today we begin a new deep dive series looking at the evolution of Gulf Coast crude storage needs in the shale era.
Thursday, 6/26/2014
Category:
Industry
Drones first made a name for themselves in the military, not just for their ability to remotely map and monitor but—when properly equipped—to target and kill. But drones are breaking through to the civilian side, and no commercial sector is more eager to explore their potential than the oil and gas industry. Some already are beginning to do so, especially in Canada, which is years ahead of the US in permitting civilian use of drones. But the US is catching up, with BP now testing drones at its operations in Prudhoe Bay, AK. In this blog, we examine what drones can do, how they already are helping the oil and gas industry, and what lies ahead.
Wednesday, 6/25/2014
Category:
Crude Oil
The crude oil market was agog yesterday with a news story broken by the Wall Street Journal that the Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) had provided letters of ruling to Pioneer Natural Resources and Enterprise Products Partners that would allow these companies to export a limited amount of wellhead condensate starting in August. If these rulings are more than just trial balloons sent up by the BIS to test the waters then they contradict previously accepted requirements for processing condensate before it could be exported. Depending on the yet-to-emerge fine print, these rulings could have a significant impact on US condensate exports as well as revenue prospects for those companies that have committed to throughput capacity at currently planned condensate splitters along the Gulf Coast. Today we navigate the nuances of the story.
Tuesday, 6/24/2014
Category:
Crude Oil
Much of RBN’s forecast 1.4 MMb/d expansion in Canadian crude production between 2014 and 2019 is expected to come from oil sands bitumen in Western Canada. An increasing proportion of this crude has to find its way to refineries configured to process this type of crude on the Gulf Coast. But pipeline capacity on that route is in critically short supply. An important set of expansions to existing Enbridge and Enterprise pipelines between Canada and Texas, parts of which are set to come online soon, hopes to alleviate the situation. Today we wrap up a two part series describing these projects and their impact.
Monday, 6/23/2014
Category:
Natural Gas
Growing Mexican demand for natural gas has been seen as a timely boon to Texas gas producers, which have been losing their Northeast and Midwest markets to the Marcellus and Utica. Gas exports to Mexico still are rising sharply, and several new gas pipelines are planned to move Eagle Ford, Permian and other US gas to Mexico. But the Mexican government is reforming its energy sector, a move that some hope will result in more aggressive development of domestic gas reserves. What does that mean for US gas exports to Mexico? Today we explore the changing lay of the land south of the border.
Sunday, 6/22/2014
Category:
Crude Oil
Over the past two years the volume of crude oil shipped by rail from Canada has increased ten-fold. Data from the Canadian National Energy Board (NEB) for the whole of Canada indicates that average rail crude exports in the first quarter of 2012 were about 16 Mb/d. That volume grew to at least 160 Mb/d in the first quarter of 2014. The increase in rail exports of crude is primarily being driven by pipeline capacity constraints. Today we introduce findings from RBN Energy’s latest Drill Down Subscriber report.
Thursday, 6/19/2014
Category:
Natural Gas
As we approach the 238th anniversary of our independence from the UK, is it possible the British Isles are about to become at least a bit dependent on us, natural gas-wise? With UK gas production falling, and with the aggressive actions of Vladimir Putin raising the specter of gas-supply interruptions from Russia to Western Europe, a case could be made that our jolly-good friends across the pond may be thinking risk-mitigation, supply diversification, and deals to buy more LNG from their former colonies. (They already plan to buy some.) But, as we discuss in today’s blog, gas prices in the UK are currently very low and the situation is, well, complicated.
Wednesday, 6/18/2014
Category:
Crude Oil
There hasn’t been a major new refinery built in the lower 48 since 1976. Now, no less than 5 projects to build new oil refineries are on the drawing boards in North Dakota. These projects are really “micro” refineries since they all have 20 Mb/d capacity compared to the 128 Mb/d national average of operating US refineries (source: Energy Information Administration - EIA). The projects all aim to take advantage of a shortage of refined products in North Dakota – especially diesel – as well as abundant supplies of crude from the Bakken shale. Today we review their progress.
Tuesday, 6/17/2014
Category:
Crude Oil
A number of independent crude producers are testing the potential of the South Central Oklahoma Oil Province—SCOOP, for short—and liking what they see. It is too early to know if SCOOP, a legacy shale play in the southern reaches of the Woodford Shale, will be the next big thing in US crude production. But SCOOP seems to have a lot going for it geology-wise and, as an added bonus, the play is located near several pipelines and the Cushing, OK oil pipeline and storage hub. Today we take a look at SCOOP, its potential for crude production, and the E&P companies chasing the dream.
Monday, 6/16/2014
Category:
Natural Gas
Recent seasonal averages on the CME NYMEX Henry Hub natural gas forward curve show just an 8 cents/MMBtu spread between next winter (2014/2015) and this summer (2014) – a number that provides very little incentive for storage injection. Things don’t look much better for storage spreads further out on the curve either with an average spread over the next 10 years of just 33 cents/MMBtu. Today we analyze storage spreads over the past 6 years.
Sunday, 6/15/2014
Category:
Crude Oil
RBN expects total Canadian crude production to grow to more than 5 MMb/d by the end of 2019 – an increase of 1.4 MMb/d over 2013. Most of that new production will be heavy bitumen from Western Canada that will find its best market at US Gulf Coast refineries configured to process that type of crude. Trouble is pipeline capacity between the production regions in Alberta and the Gulf Coast is in short supply – a situation made worse by permit delays to the Keystone XL project. A less high profile but just as critical set of projects, parts of which are about to come online expand existing Enbridge and Enterprise pipelines between Canada and Texas. Today we begin a two part series describing the impact of these new systems.