RBN Energy

This year looks like it could be a better one for many Canadian natural gas producers. Like their brethren in the U.S., they have been forced in recent years to increasingly spend within — and even less than — cash flow as other sources of financing have dried up and investors have prioritized better returns over production volume growth. With Canadian gas producers having also faced some of the worst natural gas pricing conditions on record in 2019, far worse than those in the U.S., it is no wonder that Canadian natural gas supplies pulled back in 2019, marking the first down year for overall gas supplies since 2012. Despite what is likely still to be a cash flow and spending constrained environment in 2020, there is the potential for real upside for Western Canadian natural gas supplies this year, especially for the supply that flows into TC Energy’s Nova pipeline system. Today, we consider what may be setting the stage for gas supply gains on the Nova system in 2020 after a somewhat dismal 2019.

After showing relative strength through most of the fall, prices at the UK’s National Balancing Point (NBP) natural gas benchmark collapsed by more than $1/MMBtu in December and have kept falling, and Asia’s Japan-Korea Marker (JKM) index followed suit to some degree. Nevertheless, U.S. LNG export cargoes were at record highs in December as additional liquefaction and export capacity came online last month, including the first LNG export cargoes from the Elba Liquefaction project as well as Freeport LNG’s Train 2. Moreover, U.S. shipments are expected to climb further in the New Year as still more liquefaction trains are completed. While the global price spreads haven’t deterred U.S. exports, they, along with shipping costs, do influence export economics and cargo destinations. Today, we wrap up this series with a look at how LNG export costs interact with global price spreads and impact cargo destinations.

With 2020 already in full swing, some things in the Permian Basin’s oil and natural gas markets have changed dramatically since this time last year, others not so much. When it comes to crude oil, new pipelines that came online during 2019 had a huge impact on differentials: Permian barrels are now pricing very close to other regional hubs, versus massive discounts a year ago. That has enabled Permian producers to fully benefit from the recent run-up in global oil prices. On the gas side of things, the start of the new decade won’t look much different than the end of the last one. There is still way too much supply and not enough takeaway capacity. That means that regardless of what happens at Henry Hub, the U.S. benchmark for natural gas prices, Permian producers should expect dismal values for their natural gas in 2020. Today, we take a look at the year ahead for Permian producers.

Crude oil trading dynamics in West Texas and along the Texas Gulf Coast have experienced a whirlwind of change. Permian production was skyrocketing in 2018, but has now started to slow. It seemed for a time that crude takeaway pipeline capacity wouldn’t get built fast enough; now it looks like we’ll have far too much too soon. And along the coast, the once-overlooked Port of Corpus Christi is quickly becoming the epicenter of export activity, overtaking Houston, Beaumont and Louisiana — sometimes all three combined — for most volume moved on a monthly basis. With new export terminals coming online and increased connectivity, Corpus appears poised to continue its recent string of record-setting export numbers. In today’s blog, we review some recent breakthroughs in Corpus cargoes and shine a light on the new terminals in the area.

December 2019 U.S. crude oil production soared 1.1 MMb/d above this time last year to 12.8 MMb/d. It’s a similar story for natural gas, with Lower-48 production climbing to 95 Bcf/d, up 6 Bcf/d over the year. That’s a little off the breakneck growth rate of 2018, but still quite healthy, even in the context of Shale Era increases. And it all happened in the face of continued infrastructure constraints, crude prices that fell from the mid-$60s/bbl in April to average $55/bbl from May through October, and gas prices that in several months were crushed to the lowest level in 20 years. It’s all too much supply to be absorbed by the U.S. domestic market. And that means more pipes to get the supply to the Gulf Coast and more export facilities to get the volumes on the water. What has all this meant for the market’s response to these developments? Well, at RBN we have a way to track that. We scrupulously monitor the website “hit rate” of the RBN blogs fired off to about 28,000 people each day and, at the end of each year, we look back to see which topics generated the most interest from you, our readers. That hit rate reveals a lot about major market trends. So, once again, we look into the rearview mirror to check out the top blogs of the year based on the number of rbnenergy.com website hits.

Over the past two years, MPLX has been ramping up its midstream development activity in the Lone Star State, or more specifically in the “Permian-to-Gulf” market, where it’s been building or buying into gathering systems, gas processing plants, and crude and natural gas takeaway pipelines, among other things. Marathon Petroleum Corp.’s midstream-focused master limited partnership also has been in hot pursuit of a number of possible NGL-related projects, including MPLX’s proposed Belvieu Alternative NGL (BANGL) Pipeline and three big fractionation plants in the Sweeny, TX, area, and a planned LPG export terminal in Texas City, TX. As a group, these projects would require millions of barrels of underground salt-cavern storage capacity for y-grade and NGL purity products along the Texas coast, as well as multiple pipeline connections to move the stuff to where it needs to be. Today, we continue our series on Gulf Coast NGL storage with a look at the NGL side of the MLP’s Permian-to-Gulf strategy.

Much as production growth in the Permian required the development of new pipeline capacity to take away crude oil, natural gas and NGLs, increasing activity in the Williston Basin has spurred the need for incremental capacity to move all three of the energy commodities out of western North Dakota and eastern Montana. For NGLs, the recent start-up of ONEOK’s Elk Creek Pipeline has been the answer to producers’ prayers — not just in the Williston Basin (home of the Bakken formation), but also in the Rockies’ Powder River and the Denver-Julesburg (D-J) basins, through which the new, 240-Mb/d pipeline passes on its way to Bushton, KS. Elk Creek’s timing couldn’t have been better: it came online just as a number of new gas processing plants entered commercial service in the Williston Basin, and just in advance of possible Btu restrictions on the all-important Northern Border gas pipeline that may force cutbacks in ethane rejection. Today, we explain why the Elk Creek NGL Pipeline helps resolve a number of challenges Bakken producers have been facing.