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
Tuesday, 1/08/2013
Category:
Crude Oil
By the end of this week (Friday January 11, 2013) Phase 2 of the Seaway Reversal pipeline project that delivers crude from Cushing to Houston is supposed to have come online - expanding pipeline capacity from 150 Mb/d to 400 Mb/d. Phase 1 of the project was eagerly anticipated by the market but since then (June 2012) the narrowing in price differentials between WTI Cushing and Brent expected by much of the market has not materialized. Today we explain why Seaway Phase 2 is only one factor in today’s complex US crude market evolution.
Monday, 1/07/2013
Category:
Crude Oil
Over the past two years oil terminal operators in St. James, LA have built rail receipt facilities that handle over 150 Mb/d of crude oil – most of it from North Dakota. That crude is chasing Gulf Coast prices that can be $20/Bbl higher than the Midwest. Today we explain how NuStar Energy has expanded their St James crude oil terminal to capitalize on those price differentials.
Sunday, 1/06/2013
Category:
Natural Gas Liquids
Ethane in Mont Belvieu posted at 22.5 cnts/gal on Friday, continuing the NGL’s descent into the abyss that started mid-2012. The last time we saw ethane at this level was back in 2002. With natural gas prices hanging in there above $3.00/MMbtu, there is no doubt about it. We are deep into ethane rejection economics. Not just for the Conway market like we had last summer. But wide spread, across the board, knock-out-the-ethane style rejection, unlike anything we’ve seen in the last five years. In fact, this is something new. Impending widespread rejection in the world of shale… a world of ultra-rich gas, deep ethane cuts, and constrained infrastructure. Today we’ll drill down deep into the numbers. It’s enough to make you crazy.
Thursday, 1/03/2013
Category:
Natural Gas
US natural gas pipeline exports to Mexico increased by 45 percent in the 9 months to September 2012. This dramatic increase in flows across the US/Mexico border was caused by the need to fill a widening gap between Mexico’s dwindling supplies of gas from domestic production and higher demand for gas to generate electricity. Current low US natural gas prices have made increased pipeline imports an attractive option for Mexican State Energy Company PEMEX but not without complications. Today we take a look at Mexico’s rising gas imports from the US.
Wednesday, 1/02/2013
Category:
Crude Oil
Alaska North Slope (ANS) crude production has been in decline since 1987. Once producing over 2 MMb/d this prolific field averaged just 520 Mb/d in 2012. At the same time refiners on the West Coast who previously relied on ANS are beginning to get access to domestic shale crude and might be consuming Canadian crude exports from British Columbia in a few years’ time. Today we explain the impact on West Coast crude pricing.
Wednesday, 1/02/2013
Category:
Hydrocarbons
Worried about 2013? You are not alone. There are many rational reasons to be concerned about possible developments in energy markets this year, let alone phobias about the number thirteen (triskaidekaphobia). But hey, this is the first working day of the New Year, so let’s look on the positive side. In fact we are so psyched that we are going to violate the cardinal rule of consulting. We are going to make predictions. Of the future! So hold on to your seat and get ready for our Top Ten Energy Prognostications for 2013, which according to Chinese astrology is the Year of the Snake. Hmm, that doesn’t sound good.
Sunday, 12/30/2012
Category:
Hydrocarbons
During 2012 we’ve posted over 200 RBN blogs, covering everything from ethylene cracker margins (Ethylene Ethylene, Prettiest margin I ever seen), to northeast natural gas basis (The Mighty Algonquin) to the impact of a major crude pipeline reversal (Oh-Ho-Ho it’s Magic). Now in our last posting of the year it seems appropriate to take a page out of Casey Kasem’s playbook to look back at the top blogs of 2012 based on website hits. And there’s more! In response to many members who have asked, we’ll also provide an index of all of our blogs by topic. And finally we will introduce a new website feature that will give you the ability to see what is trending on the RBN site in real time. BTW, we are not really going to look at 40 blogs. After all it is New Year’s Eve. But we will look a few of the really big winners for 2012.
Thursday, 12/27/2012
Category:
Natural Gas
The generation of power from natural gas will be the most important growth sector for the gas industry for the foreseeable future – certainly for producers, but also for the pipelines that provide the transportation service to deliver the gas to power generators. Handling the infrastructure and service challenges that come with increased power burn is therefore a priority. This is true for the nation as a whole, but was specifically raised this year by the Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO) in the heart of coal country - where coal-to-gas switching was most significant during 2012. We covered the MISO reports detailing their infrastructure concerns previously (see Hooking Up the Next Generation). This blog post is a review of challenges that the industry must address on both the regional and national level.
Wednesday, 12/26/2012
Category:
Crude Oil
The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) is currently the nation’s largest waterborne crude import terminal. Throughput at LOOP has been declining as domestic crude production has increased. Crude oil imports were over 1 MMb/d in 2008 but dropped to 0.5 MMb/d by September 2012. Light sweet crude imports in September 2012 were 10 percent of their level in 2008. Today we look at future prospects for this huge marine terminal and storage facility on the Louisiana Gulf Coast.
Tuesday, 12/25/2012
Category:
Hydrocarbons
Fundamental to our approach to energy markets at RBN is a view that natural gas, crude oil and NGLs have become much more interdependent than in the days before shale. What happens in gas impacts NGLs, which influences crude oil, which loops back to the natural gas market. We’ve written about these cross-commodity relationships in a number of RBN blogs during 2012, showing the calculations and walking through several spreadsheet models. Now we are taking our analysis one step further. Starting on December 31, 2012, we are launching a new RBN website feature called Spotcheck that displays daily updated graphs of these relationships. Today we’ll describe what is coming next week, and how you can interpret the trends to better understand developments in North America hydrocarbon markets.
Sunday, 12/23/2012
Category:
Crude Oil
The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) is the nation’s largest waterborne crude oil import terminal. Capable of handling 1.2 MMb/d of crude throughput and with associated storage topping 67 MMBbl, LOOP is connected by pipeline to 50% of the nation’s refineries. As shale crude and increasing Canadian imports rush toward the Gulf Coast pushing out waterborne imports, the terminal needs to redefine its future. Today in the first of two blogs on LOOP we look at how the port operates today.
Thursday, 12/20/2012
Category:
Natural Gas Liquids
The values of the crude-to-gas ratio and the Frac spread have fallen fifty percent from their highs this year. Frac spreads represent the difference between the value of natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs), which are heavily influenced by the price of crude. Thus the Frac spread is in effect tied to the gas-to crude ratio. Current forward curves suggest that the crude-to-gas ratio will fall another 50 percent over the next few years. Today we ask whether the Frac spread will continue it’s fall next year and beyond.
Wednesday, 12/19/2012
Category:
Natural Gas
Since the world is scheduled to end tomorrow – at least according to the Mayans, it seems appropriate that we examine another looming catastrophe: the obliteration of existing North America natural gas market relationships and flow patterns, coming in 2016. The good news about the end of this natural gas world is that not only do we know it is coming, we can make a pretty good guess about how and when it will happen, and thus prepare for it. Today we’ll examine the market developments that will result in such dire consequences.
Tuesday, 12/18/2012
Category:
Crude Oil
The Anadarko Basin centered in Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle has not yet developed production on the scale of the Bakken, Eagle Ford or Permian plays. Like the Permian Basin the Anadarko is an old field being recycled using horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques. Spectacular initial production of over 5Mb/d from wells in the Granite Wash Hogshooter formation this year has excited producers. Today we look at the basin’s development.
Monday, 12/17/2012
Category:
Crude Oil
Early next year (2013) the first phase of the Longhorn Reversal project will be completed and an initial 75 Mb/d of crude oil will begin flowing from Crane in the Permian Basin to Houston. Around the same time the Seaway pipeline from Cushing, OK to Houston will expand from 150 Mb/d to 400 Mb/d and the Double Eagle Pipeline in South Texas will start delivering 100 Mb/d of condensate to Corpus Christi. Today we look at how Magellan Midstream Partners has developed a leading position in crude storage and distribution in Cushing, Houston and Corpus Christi during the past two years.