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
Wednesday, 5/21/2014
Category:
Crude Oil
Last week US crude oil production reached 8.4 MMb/d – its highest level since October 1986 – up 50 percent since the start of 2011. The engines of growth are Texas and North Dakota and within those states, horizontal drilling in tight oil shale are generating the most exciting results. And while production is soaring, proved reserves are increasing even faster – laying the groundwork for continued output. Today we look at past, current and future US crude production growth.
Tuesday, 5/20/2014
Category:
Crude Oil
No fewer than 28 publically listed companies are currently drilling in the Permian Basin – including industry stalwarts like Occidental Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, and Shell as well as independent producers like EOG Resources, Pioneer Natural Resources, Concho Resources and Apache. Overall crude production is over 1.5 MMb/d and headed to 1.7 MMb/d by the end of 2014. Current hot spots include the Wolfcamp horizontal shale play in the Midland Basin – featured in our latest Drill Down Report. Today we look at new gathering systems in the Midland that will transport up to 490 Mb/d of crude to Crane and Colorado City, TX.
Monday, 5/19/2014
Category:
Natural Gas
Surging natural gas production volumes in the Marcellus/Utica will need to move in just about every direction. No single market—not the Northeast, the Midwest, the Southeast, or even the Gulf Coast—is big enough to absorb it all. Midstream companies are considering every cost-effective way to replumb and expand their existing pipelines to add takeaway capacity, and when still more is needed, are turning to greenfield projects. In this, the first of several company-by-company episodes on who is planning what, we examine Spectra Energy’s plans to add at least 2 Bcf/d of new Marcellus/Utica takeaway capacity by 2017, and maybe another 2 or 3 Bcf/d by the end of the decade.
Sunday, 5/18/2014
Category:
Crude Oil
One of the most exploited oil plays in history, the Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico has recently become ground zero for some of the most exciting new “unconventional” oil and gas development in North America. Horizontal drilling and vastly improved completion techniques have vaulted the Permian once again to the fastest-growing oil and gas production region of the U.S. In today’s Permian-focused blog, we review key conclusions from RBN Energy’s latest “Drill Down” Report and Production Economics Model.
Thursday, 5/15/2014
Category:
Natural Gas
Natural gas production in the Marcellus/Utica region continues to increase sharply. Appalachian gas is already dominating markets in the Northeast – helped by a series of infrastructure projects already largely in place or underway. Now producers in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia need to reach additional customers to their south and west--including potentially the biggest prize of all, the LNG export terminals being developed on the Gulf Coast. Gas pipeline takeaway capacity out of Marcellus/Utica has been added in fits and starts to date, but the need for new southern and western outlets for gas from the region is now evident, and midstream companies are planning long line, bi-directional projects with a combined capacity of more than 9 Bcf/d. In this new series, we consider this next round of pipeline projects out of the Marcellus/Utica.
Wednesday, 5/14/2014
Category:
Crude Oil
New crude pipeline capacity being added in the Rockies to ease congestion will compete directly with rail terminals built or planned in the region. Some of these rail terminals are purpose built to take barrels off the pipelines for delivery to West Coast refiners or perhaps to facilitate blending of heavier Canadian grades with lighter shale crudes. The competition between pipelines and rail in the region underlines a key accomplishment of the post-shale crude distribution system - the advent of greater choice for producers. Today we describe growing rail alternatives in the Rockies.
Tuesday, 5/13/2014
Category:
Natural Gas
Power generation has surged as a market for natural gas in recent years, and gas-fired generation has become the largest single source of generation capacity. So coordinating the two industries, or “Gas-Electric Harmonization” has been around as an issue for quite some time. But while pipelines, generators, and shippers have been arguing about a host of complicated (and pretty boring) issues for about 20 years, the subject has really heated up lately, and has the potential to cause some maj
Monday, 5/12/2014
Category:
Natural Gas
There is talk that natural gas flaring in the Bakken is peaking and will soon start to decline. But even the most optimistic forecast has the share of gas being flared falling from the current 30% plus to between 5 and 10% by 2020. That goal is still 10 to 20 times the 0.5% share of gas being flared in Texas. Can more be done to reduce Bakken flaring to Texas levels? Today we look at what it would take to slow Bakken flaring to a flicker.
Sunday, 5/11/2014
Category:
Natural Gas Liquids
Last week we covered what seemed like an onslaught of U.S. ethane export developments – Enterprise’s plans to build an ethane export facility on the Gulf Coast, INEOS’s agreement to take a portion of that facility’s capacity, INEOS’s expansion of its order for more ethane ships, and still more ethane ships ordered by Navigator Gas. What does all of this mean for the U.S. ethane market? Could 240 Mb/d of ethane export capacity due to begin operations in Q3 2016 shift the future of the entire U.S. ethane market? In today’s blog we assess the impact of large scale exports on the market for U.S. ethane.
Thursday, 5/08/2014
Category:
Crude Oil
Permian Basin crude production is expanding rapidly. At over 1.5 MMb/d it already represents nearly 19 percent of total US crude output. Midstream companies are busy developing more than a dozen gathering system extensions and additions to deliver Permian production to about 1 MMBbl of mainline pipeline capacity coming online between the start of 2013 and 2015. In today’s blog we detail planned improvements to the Basin and Cactus pipelines.
Wednesday, 5/07/2014
Category:
Natural Gas Liquids
U.S. ethane has never been exported overseas. Not yet, that is. Week by week, the details of an emerging export market for U.S.-sourced ethane are coming into focus. Enterprise Product Partners, which has been expressing interest in exporting ethane for some time, a couple of weeks ago announced plans for a 240 Mb/d export terminal on Texas’s Gulf Coast and explained how it sees things shaking out. Navigator Holdings, a major shipping company, has placed an order for new semi-refrigerated liquefied gas carriers capable of carrying ethane (or ethylene). And while U.S. ethylene producers fret about how ethane exports could drive up domestic ethane prices, there is solid evidence ethane will remain a surplus, low-cost commodity for years to come. In this follow-up to our recent ethane exports series, we consider recent developments and what they mean.
Tuesday, 5/06/2014
Category:
Crude Oil
New crude oil pipelines expected online this fall are set to unlock congestion in the Rockies that has built up over the past three years. During that time, growing volumes of Canadian, Bakken and local production have descended on the Guernsey, WY trading hub that is the regional crude distribution center. The new pipelines will increase takeaway capacity from North Dakota and Montana to Cushing via Guernsey. They will also make room for more Canadian barrels travelling to market through the Rockies and for rising local production. Today in the first of a two part series we look at the existing and new pipeline infrastructure into and out of Guernsey.
Monday, 5/05/2014
Category:
Natural Gas
The Jordan Cove LNG project in coastal Oregon is the first “greenfield” US LNG export project—and the first on the West Coast--to win the Department of Energy’s approval to export to non-Free Trade Agreement (FTA) nations. That approval is critical for an LNG exporter focused on Asian markets, because the only FTA countries in that region are South Korea and Singapore. But can Jordan Cove compete with Sabine Pass and other Gulf Coast projects with existing LNG tankage and therefore lower capital costs? Today we consider the economics behind the project.
Sunday, 5/04/2014
Category:
Crude Oil
Canadian producers trying to get their crude to market have come under pressure from two directions at once. US regulators have extended the deadline to make a decision on the Keystone pipeline that would relieve ongoing pipeline congestion out of Western Canada. Canadian regulators have increased pressure on crude by rail development plans, designed to bypass pipelines, by implementing new standards for rail tank cars. With no other apparent alternatives and despite some delays, rail terminal development plans in Canada are proceeding. Today we detail the progress of rail unloading terminals that can handle heavy Canadian crude at the US Gulf Coast.
Thursday, 5/01/2014
Category:
Natural Gas
From space the light thrown off by Bakken gas flaring makes sparsely populated western North Dakota look like Minneapolis-St. Paul. But the gathering pipelines, the processing plants and the interstate pipelines needed to transport Bakken gas to market are finally being built, and within a few years the glow of gas flaring in the region is expected to dim. Today we continue our review of gas flaring in the Bakken with a focus on increased efforts to move Bakken gas to processing plants and consumers.