RBN Energy
Early Access
Tuesday, 9/30/2025
Friday, 9/26/2025
Before data centers were the hot topic everywhere, Virginia was already rolling out the red carpet and it seemed that tech firms were constructing facilities as fast as humanly possible, drawn by the state’s robust fiber-optic network and low power prices. But while other states are racing to catch up, Virginia may be hitting the brakes. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at what makes Virginia so “sweet” for data center developers, their impact on the state, and efforts by some to slow progress.
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
Thursday, 4/06/2023
Category:
Natural Gas
The Permian natural gas pipeline build-out is entering a new era. With numerous LNG terminals set to expand exports along the U.S. Gulf Coast through the end of this decade, the need to link Permian gas supply to those facilities has never been greater. While there have been three greenfield pipelines built out of the Permian in the last five years, with a fourth on the way in 2024, each has ended in the same general area west of Houston or farther south near Corpus Christi. However, market needs are shifting, with most of the next wave of LNG export capacity to be added east of Houston, closer to Beaumont and in southeastern Louisiana, and those facilities want access to Permian gas. As a result, we weren’t surprised this month when two new proposals to directly link gas from West Texas markets to those export terminals were announced. If built, Targa Resources’ Apex and WhiteWater Midstream’s Blackfin projects could significantly alter Texas gas markets and how Permian supplies move to their final destination. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the latest developments in Texas gas pipeline infrastructure.
Friday, 4/07/2023
Category:
Crude Oil
Trading in the highly integrated US/Canadian crude oil market is undergoing a profound transformation, driven mostly by the pull of exports off the Gulf Coast. But the shifts in flows, values and even the trade structures being used today are not well understood outside a small cadre of professional traders and marketers. Consider a few examples: Domestic sweet oil traded at Cushing on NYMEX is not West Texas Intermediate — WTI at Cushing has averaged a hefty $1.80/bbl over NYMEX for the past year. Most spot Houston and Midland crudes trade as buy-sell swaps. WTI in Houston trades at a discount to Corpus Christi and sweet crudes in Louisiana. Crude in Wyoming trades at a premium to Cushing. And the Gulf Coast is the highest-value market for Canadian heavy crude. This is not your father’s (or mother’s) oil trading game. Our mission in this blog series is to pull back the curtain on physical crude trading in North America, explain how it works, what sets the price, and who is doing the deals.
Ebb and Flow - Commodity Pricing Currents Trigger Significant Regional Shifts in 2023 E&P Investment
Wednesday, 4/05/2023
Category:
Financial
The pandemic-induced shackles on U.S. E&P capital spending were shattered by rising commodity prices in 2022, and total investment for the 42 producers we follow rose a dramatic 54% over 2021. But E&Ps haven’t abandoned the fiscal discipline or focus on cash-flow generation that allowed them to survive COVID-related demand destruction and resuscitate investor interest. Their 2023 capital budgets generally sustain the pace of Q4 2022 spending and reflect a modest 17% increase over full-year 2022. However, commodity price trends and changes in investment opportunities have resulted in significant shifts in the allocation of the total investment among the major U.S. unconventional plays. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll analyze 2023 capital spending, region by region.
Tuesday, 4/04/2023
Category:
Crude Oil
Russia supplied significant volumes of crude oil and refined products to Europe for many years. Its primary crude oil export grade, medium-sour Urals (approximately 30 API and 1.7% sulfur), was a benchmark, both in quality and price, that European refiners long relied on to plan refinery processing configurations and that served as a signal for crude oil pricing dynamics in Northwest Europe and the Mediterranean. In addition to crude oil, Russia was a large supplier of gasoil (diesel) as well as a more limited supplier of other refined products such as fuel oil (including intermediate feedstocks) and naphtha. In today’s RBN blog, we review the abrupt reduction in Russian crude oil movements to Europe following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine 13 months ago with an eye on the specific grades that have filled the gap.
Monday, 4/03/2023
Category:
Renewables
There’s been a lot written about the federal government’s plan to provide billions of dollars in financial support to create a limited number of regional hydrogen hubs but not a lot of insight about how those hub proposals are being crafted to meet the Department of Energy’s (DOE) selection criteria. The details and strategies behind those plans have been hard to come by because few of the initial concept papers were made public while others remain a mystery, even months after the first informal winnowing of candidates. One exception is the Leading in Gulf Coast Hydrogen Transition (LIGH2T) hub proposal being prepared by a consortium that includes a large group of states, some key commercial partners, several universities and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). In today’s RBN blog, we look at what we know about the LIGH2T proposal, which will submit a full application by the April 7 deadline, and how it addresses three key factors likely to play a role in the selection process.
Friday, 3/31/2023
Category:
Crude Oil
As crude oil exports have become an integral part of US/Canadian trading, the market has evolved to accommodate this profound transformation. But the mechanisms used to price many of the most significant export grades are obscure and little understood outside a small cadre of professional traders and marketers. This is particularly true for the most liquid grades that employ a trading approach known as “exchange trading” or “spread trading,” in which volumes at regional hubs are valued in buy-sell transactions against domestic sweet crude at Cushing. In this context, “exchange trading” does not mean trading on a regulated exchange. Instead, it means trading via an exchange of barrels between buyer and seller. In today's RBN blog, we delve into some of the most complex aspects of this trading mechanism.
Thursday, 3/30/2023
Category:
Natural Gas
The oil and gas industry is being pushed by regulators, third parties and investors to better identify and mitigate its methane emissions, especially the few “super-emitter” sites that make outsize contributions to overall emissions. But while operators are ramping up capital spending on new technology, one thing has become clear: There is no silver bullet when it comes to reducing emissions, and each option includes one or more drawbacks, including source attribution, costs, quantification, and detection limits. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll break down the advantages and disadvantages of the different measurement technologies.
Wednesday, 3/29/2023
Category:
Financial
Last August, we titled our review of Q2 2022 E&P financial results Camelot after rising oil prices and surging natural gas realizations drove revenues, profits and cash flows to levels that seemed like an unrealizable dream for producers that had teetered on the brink of financial instability just two years before. Recent year-end results revealed the strongest returns in the industry’s history, much of which were distributed to long-suffering shareholders. But dreams fade and prices retreat, and Q4 2022 results suggest a far less idyllic 2023. In today’s RBN blog, we review the record 2022 performance and more sobering Q4 results.
Tuesday, 3/28/2023
Category:
Government & Regulatory
If you follow developments in the energy industry, you know that news about permitting for major infrastructure projects can sometimes read more like a horror story: 14 years to build an electric transmission line, a decade to get a mining permit, and the reality that some projects can be constructed in far less time than it takes to secure the required permits and work through any legal challenges. It’s a known problem with a lot of contributing factors, but no easy answers. In today’s RBN blog, we look at how permitting difficulties have become a flashpoint for all sorts of stakeholders — industry groups, environmental advocates, the general public, and politicians of all stripes. Our focus today will be on the current poster child of permitting challenges, Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), but we’ll also discuss how permitting setbacks complicate the development of all types of projects, from traditional oil and gas pipelines to initiatives at the heart of the energy transition.
Monday, 3/27/2023
Category:
Natural Gas
From its origins as a specialized energy source sold under long-term, point-to-point contracts to primarily Asian destinations, LNG has become progressively more commodified as its global reach has spread, with 44 countries now importing it. An increasing proportion of cargoes are destination-flexible and can be sent to the market that offers the best price, and the marginal price of LNG is set by supply and demand factors. The spectrum of commercial players has grown and come to resemble more closely the oil market, with not only international oil companies as major participants but also traders and utility buyers, all of whom are contributing to a vibrant international LNG marketplace. But unlike oil and other established commodities, LNG lacks a global reference or benchmark price, and instead is priced regionally, with the divergence in regional market prices giving rise to very profitable arbitrage opportunities for those controlling both product and ships. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the pricing indices used to make LNG trading decisions and two initiatives being implemented by the European Commission (EC) that are intended to improve price transparency for LNG trades and prevent price spikes in European gas markets through a consortium-purchasing approach.
Friday, 3/24/2023
Category:
Crude Oil
Trading in the highly integrated US/Canadian crude oil market is undergoing a profound transformation, driven mostly by the pull of exports off the Gulf Coast. But the shifts in flows, values and even the trade structures being used today are not well understood outside a small cadre of professional traders and marketers. Consider a few examples: Domestic sweet oil traded at Cushing on NYMEX is not West Texas Intermediate — WTI at Cushing has averaged a hefty $1.80/bbl over NYMEX for the past year. Most spot Houston and Midland crudes trade as buy-sell swaps. WTI in Houston trades at a discount to Corpus Christi and sweet crudes in Louisiana. Crude in Wyoming trades at a premium to Cushing. And the Gulf Coast is the highest-value market for Canadian heavy crude. This is not your father’s (or mother’s) oil trading game. Our mission in this blog series is to pull back the curtain on physical crude trading in North America, explain how it works, what sets the price, and who is doing the deals.
Thursday, 3/23/2023
Category:
Financial
In marking the third anniversary of COVID’s onset, the Washington Post detailed a study that showed most of us are already shedding the virus-impacted memories of that tedious and often traumatic time to concentrate on looking ahead — a trait scientists label “future-oriented positivity bias.” That transition was clearly evident in the 2022 investment decisions of U.S. E&Ps as the capex budgets of the 42 companies we monitor, pared to the bone during the pandemic, expanded through last year from initial guidance of a 24% increase over 2021 to a final 54% reported increase for the full year. They increased production by 9% year-over-year, but producers haven’t forgotten fiscal discipline or a focus on cash flow generation. In today’s RBN blog, we analyze 2023 capital budgets that generally sustain the pace of Q4 2022 spending and eschew additional increases in a lower commodity price environment.
Wednesday, 3/22/2023
Category:
Crude Oil
In small steps and giant leaps, Enbridge has been building out two “supersystems” for transporting crude oil to refineries and the company’s own export terminals along Texas’s Gulf Coast, one moving heavy crude all the way from Alberta’s oil sands to the Houston area and the other shuttling light oil from the Permian to Enbridge’s massive terminal in Ingleside on the north side of Corpus Christi Bay. There’s nothing quite like it — first, an unbroken series of pipelines from Western Canada to Enbridge’s tank farm in Cushing, OK, (via the Midwest) and from there to Freeport, TX, on the twin Seaway pipelines; and second, the Gray Oak and Cactus II pipes from West Texas to the U.S.’s #1 crude export terminal. And the midstream giant is far from done. New projects and expansions are in the works, as we discuss in today’s RBN blog.
Tuesday, 3/21/2023
Category:
Renewables
The buzz and activity around renewable diesel (RD), a chemically identical “drop-in” replacement for traditional petroleum-based diesel, continues to grow. The goals with RD, which is produced from renewable feedstocks, are to reduce the need for petroleum and to lower life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions — critical steps in meeting climate agendas in many countries. Canada recently enacted legislation designed to promote the domestic production of RD as part of a broader emissions-reduction strategy. In today’s RBN blog, we take a tour of the newly emerging RD production sector in Canada and examine whether it could one day replace imports from the U.S.
Monday, 3/20/2023
Category:
Refined Fuels
At first glance, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal to facilitate increased sales of E15 — an 85/15 blend of gasoline blendstock and ethanol — by putting it on the same summertime regulatory footing as commonly available E10 in eight Midwest/Great Plains states might seem like a boon to corn farmers and ethanol producers. But as we discuss in today’s RBN blog, there are a number of economic, practical and even psychological barriers to broadened public access to — and use of — E15 that go well beyond the specific regulatory issue the EPA proposal addresses. As a result, as we see it, EPA’s plan is unlikely to boost E15 demand in any meaningful way, at least for now.