RBN Energy
Early Access
Tuesday, 9/30/2025
Monday, 9/29/2025
It’s well understood today that the U.S. natural gas market turned from potential domestic shortages to major LNG exports thanks to the Shale Revolution. What is not so well remembered is that the dramatic shift in the U.S. gas market wasn’t widely understood at the time and took several years to be accepted by the energy industry. In today’s RBN blog, we turn our attention to the beginnings of the Shale Revolution and how it allowed the U.S. to evolve into the world’s largest LNG exporter.
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 - Monday, 9/29/2025 (3:30 pm)
Report Highlight: NATGAS Permian
Dry natural gas production in the Permian Basin averaged 22 Bcf/d for the week ended September 29, down slightly from the week prior, with small changes across most pipelines in the basin last week. The past few weeks, El Paso Pipeline has been the primary driver of lower supply.
By Martin King - Monday, 9/29/2025 (2:15 pm)
For the week of September 26, Baker Hughes reported that the Western Canadian gas-directed rig count was unchanged at 60 (blue line and text in left hand chart below), five less than one year ago and is holding at its highest point since mid-March.
Daily Energy Blog
Wednesday, 1/30/2013
Category:
Natural Gas
Growth in natural gas demand forecasts these days rely heavily on projections of increased power burn. Lack of coordination between the gas and electric industries threatens to limit that expansion. The greatest challenge is the security of gas supply to the generators and how that impacts reliability. Regional differences in the electric power market appear to make national regulations to secure gas supplies unworkable. Today we review FERC efforts to understand and perhaps attempt to standardize those regional differences.
Tuesday, 1/29/2013
Category:
Crude Oil
Over the next three years seven Gulf Coast region terminal operators will build an estimated 19 MMBbl of new crude oil storage capacity. Those storage expansions are being made in preparation for as much as 3.1 MMb/d of new crude supplies expected into the Gulf Coast refining region over the next two years from new pipeline projects. Today we summarize the efforts that terminal operators are making to get ready for the flood.
Monday, 1/28/2013
Category:
Natural Gas
Is the winter of 2012/13 all over - bar the shouting? With the end of the heating season just nine weeks away (March 31, 2013) there may not be enough time left for winter temperatures to have a material impact on record natural gas storage levels. Today we analyze where the winter could go from here.
Sunday, 1/27/2013
Category:
Crude Oil
This year (2013) Canadian regulators are expected to decide the fate of two West Coast crude oil pipeline projects. If one or both of these pipelines get the go-ahead then future expansion of Canadian production will be secure for a few more years and the export option to Asia will bring producers higher prices. The regulators face a single jeopardy – approve the pipelines or Canadian crude production expansion will decline. Producers face a double jeopardy if the pipelines are not built – lower production and lower prices. Today we discuss how critical the West Coast pipeline projects are to Canadian producers.
Thursday, 1/24/2013
Category:
Natural Gas
Canadian National Energy Board (NEB) data released earlier this month shows that the flow of natural gas imports across the US border at Niagara reversed to become exports for the first time in 2012. In the “old world” before Marcellus in 2008 - Canadian gas flowed into the US at an average 0.9 Bcf/d at Niagara. Last year those imports ground to a halt from May to October 2012 before reversing to 0.3 Bcf/d of exports to Canada in November. The reversal confirms that expanding Marcellus supplies are not just pushing Canadian imports back over the border but also starting to penetrate the Canadian market. Today we look at the dynamics of the Northeast gas flow reversal.
Wednesday, 1/23/2013
Category:
Natural Gas Liquids
Even though ethane prices have recovered by about 4 cnts/gal from the lows last week (January 14, 2013) most gas processing plants are still faced with ethane rejection economics. The past two blogs in our Gas Processing Economics series examined the impact of ethane rejection for a specific plant configuration, running a range of Eagle Ford gas streams. But Eagle Ford gas is quite rich and high in ethane content – certainly not representative of the overall market. Is it possible to use the RBN Gas Processing model to look at the aggregate market for U.S. gas processing? That answer is yes, if you don’t mind hacking your way through some EIA statistics and manipulating a few input variables.
Tuesday, 1/22/2013
Category:
Crude Oil
Demand for imports of condensate to use as a diluent for blending with heavy Canadian bitumen crude is expected to increase from 200 Mb/d in 2013 to over 500 Mb/d by 2020 according to the Canadian Energy Research Institute. This is a very big deal. Last week we described the route that Plains All American developed to ship condensate from the Eagle Ford to Western Canada. Today we describe similar plans being developed by Kinder Morgan.
Tuesday, 1/22/2013
Category:
Natural Gas Liquids
Over the past week (Jan 13-20, 2013) the ethane-to-gas ratio has recovered slightly from 0.99 to 1.05, mostly due to a 3 cnt/gal increase in the price of purity ethane at Mont Belvieu (OPIS 24.5 cnts/gal). [See today’s Spotcheck “Ethane to Henry Hub Gas Ratio” graph. Click here if you have trouble accessing Spotcheck.] But that does not change the fact that the ethane market is still deep in ethane rejection territory. What does it mean for gas processing economics? And how do different gas streams impact NGL recoveries, ethane rejection and tailgate gas volumes. That’s what we’ll examine today.
Thursday, 1/17/2013
Category:
Natural Gas
During 2012 the FERC jumped into the ring to involve itself in the long running debate to improve coordination between the gas and electric power industries. The FERC is motivated by concerns about reliability and the trend to increase power generation from natural gas at the expense of coal and oil. The commission held 5 regional conferences to identify the industry’s concerns and the role of regulation in any solutions. Today we examine progress on this important initiative.
Wednesday, 1/16/2013
Category:
Crude Oil
The pipelines transporting Western Canadian crude oil to US markets are full to overflowing. Space on the main lines is being rationed. As much as 250 Mb/d of new production is expected online during 2013. The price of Western Canadian Select heavy crude fell to nearly $40 under NYMEX WTI during the first week of January 2013. The pressure is on to build new takeaway capacity to Canada’s west coast. Today we look at the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project.
Tuesday, 1/15/2013
Category:
Natural Gas
Throughout 2012 and into this January natural gas producers have done far more hedging than consumers with the Henry Hub NYMEX futures contract. Producers are still locking in higher prices on the forward curve to protect the value of their future production in the ground. Today we review trends in hedger sentiment.
Monday, 1/14/2013
Category:
Crude Oil
When Plains All American began building out their terminal at St. James in 2004 the business model was based on crude imports flowing through LOOP. That had to change gears along with the market. Since then they have developed a successful business transporting condensate to Western Canada – that is now being supplied from the Eagle Ford basin. Plains also built a crude rail unloading facility at St. James before crude by rail hit the headlines. Today we describe how Plains successfully leveraged their St. James terminal assets.
Sunday, 1/13/2013
Category:
Natural Gas
Last week in Ethane Asylum Big Time we looked at the implications of ethane rejection at a typical Eagle Ford plant, using as our example the model developed a few weeks back in our blog series titled How Rich is Rich – Gas Processing Economics – Part 3. In order to get to the market implications and conclusions in “Ethane Asylum Big Time”, we skipped over some of the details of our calculations, promising to get back to the model this week. So that’s where we are going today – deep into the gas processing model abyss. Follow only if you dare.
Thursday, 1/10/2013
Category:
Natural Gas
Mexico’s pipeline infrastructure is struggling to meet booming demand for cheap US natural gas imports across the Rio Grande. To open the way for increased flows of gas the state energy company PEMEX has launched an ambitious pipeline construction program on both sides of the border. Today we describe these pipeline projects.
Wednesday, 1/09/2013
Category:
Natural Gas
We learned from our friends at Bentek this week that gas demand from the power sector averaged a record 25 Bcf/d in 2012 – nearly 20 percent higher than 2011. The increase in demand for natural gas for power generation largely resulted from system operators switching from coal plants to natural gas after the price of natural gas fell to 10 year lows in April 2012. Today we look at how power generation plant fuel costs drive coal-to-gas switching.