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Wednesday, 10/01/2025
Tuesday, 9/30/2025
More than 70 new data centers are under development in Virginia, which is already the world’s leading hub for the massive, high-tech facilities. But given the rapid pace of the buildout and the challenges that come with it, it’s probably no surprise that not everyone in the Old Dominion State is as enthusiastic about data centers as they once were. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at some of the biggest data centers in the works and discuss their path forward.
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 Adam Baker - Wednesday, 10/01/2025 (3:15 pm)
TotalEnergies is set to acquire a 49% stake in natural gas-producing assets operated by Continental Resources in the Anadarko Basin of Oklahoma, strengthening its foothold in the U.S. natural gas market.
By Christine Groenewold - Wednesday, 10/01/2025 (2:00 pm)
Report Highlight: U.S. Propane Billboard
The EIA reported total U.S. propane/propylene inventories had a build of 3.5 MMbbl for the week ended September 26, which was more than industry expectations for an increase of 1.7 MMbbl and the average build for the week of 1.5 MMbbl. Total U.S.
Daily Energy Blog
Wednesday, 4/25/2012
Category:
Natural Gas
It’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve looked at natural gas balances. Since today is EIA Natgas Storage day it seems appropriate to check in on the progress natural gas producers are making to cut back supplies. For readers not familiar with the quirks and foibles of the natural gas market, Thursdays are big days for gas traders. On Thursday mornings at exactly 10:30AM central time the EIA posts weekly natural gas storage inventories. Like other petroleum inventory numbers, these are not forecasts. They are EIA’s best guess at inventories at the end of last week. If you are interested, here’s the URL: http://ir.eia.gov/ngs/ngs.html.
Tuesday, 4/24/2012
Category:
Crude Oil
On Monday I spoke at the Canadian Energy Research Institute’s (CERI) Crude Oil Conference in Calgary, Alberta. Presentation title: The Looming Imbalance - Supply/Demand Implications of the Shale Oil Revolution. Like most oil conferences these days, it was very well attended and included some high profile Canadian energy luminaries like Joe Oliver, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources. As you might expect, this was a crowd very friendly to oil producers in general, and to oil sands production specifically. Have no doubt that Canada is going to increase production from oil sands by at least 1 MMb/d over the next 5 years whether the barrels come to the U.S, or not. It is a “national imperative”.
Monday, 4/23/2012
Category:
Crude Oil
Last week we covered the incredible growth and potential of the Bakken, where production is just over 600 MB/d headed toward 1,300 Mb/d in 2016 based on Bentek forecasts. In ‘With a Bakken well, they drilled more’ we looked at other producing zones in the Williston basin that have potential far beyond the Bakken proper. We were immediately inundated with demands for equal time from that other super-high-growth tight oil play – the Eagle Ford. “Hey”, say the Eaglefordians – “We are now the most active horizontal oil play, blowing past the Willison Basin late last year. Don’t you think we deserve just as much airtime?” Yes, they do. This week the total Eagle Ford rig count came in at 274 with 202 targeting oil. According to www.eaglefordshale.com, both numbers are records.
Sunday, 4/22/2012
Category:
Natural Gas
Last week I attended the LDC Gas Forum Southeast in Atlanta. One of the folks I met at the conference was a manager of fuels risk management for a Kentucky utility. To protect the innocent, we’ll call him Joe Friday.
Friday, 4/20/2012
Category:
Hydrocarbons
Yesterday ICE next-day gas at Henry Hub posted at $1.85/MMbtu, down a penny from Wednesday. The CME/Nymex May contract settled at still another 10 year low (how many more 10 year lows could there be?) at $1.907, down 4.4 cnts. But May WTI crude oil at Cushing is still above one hundred bucks a barrel, closing at $102.27/bbl, off 40 cnts. Our favorite measure of fundamental market disparity – the ratio of prompt crude futures to cash gas is now up to 55X (simply 102.27/1.85).
Wednesday, 4/18/2012
Category:
Crude Oil
At the Platts Oil and Gas Conference in Denver last week, one of the best presentations was from David Stone, Director Portfolio and Business Strategy with Marathon’s Onshore Exploration group. His presentation was titled The Bakken System and the Vision For growth, and covered the resource potential, projections, and Marathon’s position in the play. I’ll hit the high points from my notes taken during the presentation. I’ll also reference a few of the slides included as an attachment at the bottom of this blog posting.
Tuesday, 4/17/2012
Category:
Natural Gas Liquids
I’m doing two more conferences this week. Yesterday I was a speaker at the Gas Processors Association (GPA) annual conference in New Orleans. Appropriately the theme of this year’s conference is …Laissez les bons temps rouler… …Let the good times roll, and that was certainly the case. As extensively documented here in our series on gas processing economics - the Golden Age of Natural Gas Processors – times have never been better for gas processors. And it seemed like there was a smile on everyone’s face to prove it.
Monday, 4/16/2012
Category:
Natural Gas
Yesterday was a swingin, Up-N-Down day for natural gas. See the Updata ‘Candlestick-Volume’ chart for the CME/NYMEX May contract below, that shows upticks in gray, downticks in red, with the width of the bar proportional to the volume during that trading period. So there was a big move up on the open, it was pounded down during the morning session on relatively consistent volume, then drifted back up before closing above the two dollar mark at $2.016, up 3.5 cnts. The futures market spent 3 days below $2.00 this time around. Yes, I’m suggesting that we have not seen the last of one-handle prices. For reference, cash markets didn’t seem so enthusiastic with the ICE prompt cash Henry Hub index languishing back at $1.88/MMbtu, up a penny.
Thursday, 4/12/2012
Category:
Hydrocarbons
Yesterday I attended and was a speaker at the Platts 6th Annual Rockies Oil & Gas conference at the Grand Hyatt Denver. There were about 350 registered attendees, by far the largest of these conferences. I’ve been a speaker at the event for the past four years. Good friend and master of ceremonies Stuart Nance (his first day on the job as VP of Bill Barrett Corp.) noted that in previous years the conference was titled Gas and Oil Conference. Now the order is reversed. That tells you a lot about the speaker topics and audience interest. I spoke at 2:15 and was the first to utter the word “gas”. And I only had 3 slides on the topic.
Wednesday, 4/11/2012
Category:
Natural Gas
Finally. The wait is over. The May CME/NYMEX natural gas contract dropped 4.7 cnts to close at $1.984/MMbtu. June was lower by the same amount, closing at $2.105. It is still another 10 year low and another milestone in the onslaught of shale production in the year-of-no-winter. The last time we saw a Natgas futures contract close at this level was Jan 28, 2002. For reference, that was one day before President Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’ State of the Union speech. Seems like a long time ago.
Wednesday, 4/11/2012
Category:
Natural Gas Liquids
Yesterday the price of ethane in E/P mix in Conway dropped again, now down to 14.5 cnts/gal, or $6.09/Bbl. A lot of the ethane barrels that move down the ONEOK Overland Pass NGL pipeline from Opal, WY to Conway, KS get priced out based on Conway ethane numbers. We talked about this situation last Wednesday in Not Gonna Lie.
Tuesday, 4/10/2012
Category:
Crude Oil
Last week EIA published a note titled Cushing Crude Oil Inventories Rising In 2012, which focuses on the 12 MMbl increase in storage levels from mid-January until end-March. It was a 43% surge, the largest over an 11 week period since 2009.
Monday, 4/09/2012
Category:
Natural Gas
May natural gas futures closed out last week at $2.089/MMbtu, down 5.2 cnts. The Henry Hub ICE cash day-ahead index was back below $2, coming in at $1.9802, down 8 cnts. Cash prices have now been hovering in the bottom-end of the $2 range for more than a month. U.S storage inventories are up to 2,479 Bcf, 60.5% over the five year average. Last year between the 2nd week of April and the beginning of storage withdrawals (during a hot summer with a lot of gas fired power generation), another 2,252 Bcf went into storage. If that happens this year, it would mean that the storage balance would top out at 4,631 Bcf – unfortunate since EIA tells us that capacity is about 4,200 Bcf. The implication is that storage inventories will max out capacity sometime in the early fall, basically hitting The Wall – with unknown consequences for natural gas markets. We don’t need no education. We need less gas or more demand.
Thursday, 4/05/2012
Category:
Crude Oil
About five weeks ago Bakken crude oil prices nose-dived almost $25/Bbl in a few days. In a posting titled A Perfect Storm in the Bakken we looked at the geography of flows through Clearbrook and Guernsey, the behavior of regional prices and the causes of the price crash. The graph below shows the prices at these two hubs versus WTI at Cushing with the period in question indicated by the blue dashed line.
Wednesday, 4/04/2012
Category:
Natural Gas Liquids
If you don’t have young teenagers (I don’t) and are not in the blogging business (I am), you might not be keeping up with the incredible number of internet/texting acronyms that have entered the ‘language’ over the past few years. One such acronym is NGL which of course stands for Not Gonna Lie. Any Google of a search term containing NGL brings up this definition and all sorts of other interesting hits. For your general edification I’ll be working some of these into the RBN blogs. That way you can use these terms to entertain your friends and look cool to your teenagers.