RBN Energy
Early Access
Friday, 9/26/2025
Thursday, 9/25/2025
The popularity of weather derivatives has ebbed and flowed since their introduction in the late 1990s but trading activity has rebounded in recent years as the trading community has increasingly begun to reassess the need to hedge weather-related risks — everything from high temperatures and rainfall levels to power prices and cooling demand. In today’s RBN blog, we examine the role of weather derivatives, how they are used to hedge risk, and why they may be becoming increasingly important to the energy industry.
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 Jeremy Meier - Friday, 9/26/2025 (3:00 pm)
US oil and gas rig count climbed to 549 rigs for the week ending September 26, an increase of seven rigs vs. a week ago and the largest gain since July according to Baker Hughes data.
By Jason Lindquist - Friday, 9/26/2025 (10:00 am)
Report Highlight: Hydrogen Billboard
Low-carbon steel that utilizes green hydrogen in the production process will be used in Microsoft data centers under an agreement announced this week with Swedish steelmaker Stegra.
Daily Energy Blog
Thursday, 9/08/2022
Category:
Renewables
Last year’s $1 trillion-plus infrastructure law calls for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to invest up to $8 billion over five years to support the development of four or more U.S. hydrogen hubs. It’s a safe bet that the DOE will determine that at least one location along the Gulf Coast is worthy of its support — and maybe even a couple, given the extent of existing hydrogen supply, demand and midstream infrastructure already in place in Texas and Louisiana in particular. We’d also be willing to wager that California will be another beneficiary of the federal government’s hydrogen-hub largess. Not only does the nation’s most populous state have extraordinary potential for clean-hydrogen development, its public and private sectors have been aggressively pursuing climate-friendly energy alternatives for decades. In today’s RBN blog, we examine the various efforts underway to develop hydrogen-related infrastructure — and hydrogen demand — in the Golden State.
Wednesday, 9/07/2022
Category:
Refined Fuels
The thinking behind Next Wave Energy Partners’ late-2019 decision to build a first-of-its-kind ethylene-to-alkylate plant was that a combination of NGL production growth and new ethylene supply — plus increasing demand for alkylate, an octane-boosting gasoline blendstock — would be a win-win-win for ethylene producers, refiners and Next Wave itself. Now, with construction of the plant along the Houston Ship Channel approaching the homestretch, things are shaking out very much as the company had anticipated — even better, in fact. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the progress being made on Next Wave’s Project Traveler plant and the market forces validating the company’s final investment decision (FID).
Tuesday, 9/06/2022
Category:
Crude Oil
The renewed focus on energy security — and the acknowledgment that the world will continue to rely on hydrocarbons for decades to come — may be breathing new life into an often-overlooked U.S. production area: Alaska’s North Slope. The state’s crude oil output is down to its lowest level since before the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) came online in 1977. But now federal regulators are moving toward final approval for ConocoPhillips’s $8 billion Willow project in the National Petroleum Reserve, and Australia’s Santos Ltd. and Spain’s Repsol have taken a final investment decision (FID) on the $2.6 billion first phase of their Pikka project between Willow and Prudhoe Bay. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss recent hydrocarbon-related developments in America’s Last Frontier.
Monday, 9/05/2022
Category:
Refined Fuels
Since the century turned, there’s been a big buildup in refining capacity in the U.S. Midwest, primarily to process the increasing volumes of heavy sour crude being piped in from Western Canada. Over the same period, refining capacity in the Mid-Atlantic region has declined by more than half, mostly for economic reasons — including the lack of pipeline access to favorably priced U.S. shale oil — but also due to events, such as the devastating June 2019 fire at Philadelphia Energy Solutions’ 330-Mb/d refinery in Philadelphia, which led the facility’s owner to shut it down. In addition to spurring more refined product imports to the Mid-Atlantic and increased flows to the region on Colonial Pipeline, the changing market dynamics prompted a push to increase pipeline flows of gasoline and diesel east from the Midwest to markets in Pennsylvania and beyond. In today’s RBN blog, we continue a review of the U.S.’s still-morphing refined product pipeline networks with a look at recently added capacity from PADD 2 to PADD 1.
Sunday, 9/04/2022
Category:
Renewables
Not long ago, many considered large-scale industrial carbon capture to be a pie-in-the-sky concept. But neither the capturing of carbon dioxide (CO2) nor permanent underground sequestration is new — naturally occurring sources of CO2 have been used in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) for decades. And, with new financial incentives and a renewed sense of urgency regarding climate action, things are changing fast — so quickly, in fact, that the carbon-capture industry may be poised for exponential growth, both in the U.S. and abroad. In the encore edition of today’s RBN blog, we discuss highlights from our second Drill Down Report on carbon capture.
Thursday, 9/01/2022
Category:
Natural Gas
Two of the biggest challenges that Europe faces in the race to wean itself off Russian natural gas are the need to develop new pipeline connections between the continent’s many isolated gas networks and to integrate the European Union’s multiple gas markets. Addressing these won’t be easy. Unlike the U.S., whose pipeline systems were designed to transport gas long distances and across jurisdictional lines, Europe’s networks are more regional or even local in nature, and only recently has the EU been taking steps to link the continent’s markets. Oh, by the way, U.S. producers and LNG exporters should care about all this, because if Europe gets its act together, it could become an even larger and longer-term recipient of gas originating from the Permian, Haynesville, Marcellus/Utica and other shale plays. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the prospects for tying together the EU’s gas pipelines, gas storage facilities, LNG import terminals and gas markets.
Wednesday, 8/31/2022
Category:
Financial
Champagne corks were popping in E&P boardrooms and executive suites over the past few weeks as they unveiled record-high second-quarter 2022 earnings and cash flows. The strong financial results in the near-idyllic quarter — pre-tax operating earnings and cash flows surged by 29% and 22%, respectively, from the already elevated Q1 2022 levels — were driven by soaring commodity prices and producers’ strict financial discipline. And the celebrations weren’t limited to E&P headquarters. Shareholders have also benefited as companies passed on the unprecedented largess to their investors. In today’s RBN blog, we analyze how U.S. oil and gas producers distributed their soaring free cash flows and discuss the underlying corporate strategies.
Tuesday, 8/30/2022
Category:
Renewables
Not long ago, many considered large-scale industrial carbon capture to be a pie-in-the-sky concept. But neither the capturing of carbon dioxide (CO2) nor permanent underground sequestration is new — naturally occurring sources of CO2 have been used in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) for decades. And, with new financial incentives and a renewed sense of urgency regarding climate action, things are changing fast — so quickly, in fact, that the carbon-capture industry may be poised for exponential growth, both in the U.S. and abroad. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss highlights from our second Drill Down Report on carbon capture.
Monday, 8/29/2022
Category:
Crude Oil
Western Canada’s heavy oil producers have become all too familiar with fluctuating and often very wide price discounts for their product. Too often, the culprits have been insufficient pipeline export capacity and/or rapidly rising production. It might be easy to quickly dismiss the latest widening of the heavy oil price discount as being related to these well-known factors, but it turns out that other more international trends are at work, ranging from U.S. government-backed competition in the Gulf Coast to heavy discounting of competing barrels in other far-flung regions of the world. In today’s RBN blog, we look beyond the borders of Canada for an explanation of the latest pressures driving wider Canadian heavy oil price discounts.
Sunday, 8/28/2022
Category:
Natural Gas
The 2022 hurricane season is off to a quiet start, but the tropics seem to have awakened in recent days and are likely to ramp up in September — the peak month for tropical storm activity. Forecasters are still predicting an above-average season, calling for as many as 10 hurricanes and up to five major ones. That would mean greater volatility for energy markets in any year, but the stakes are arguably higher this year than any time in recent memory — especially for natural gas. That’s because prices are already at the highest level in over a decade and flirting with the $10/MMBtu mark. The gas market is tight domestically and globally, particularly in Europe. Lower 48 storage remains near the five-year low. European gas storage, after lagging far behind, has caught up to the five-year average this month, but the continent is still dependent on a consistent stream of U.S. LNG cargoes, particularly as it works to wean itself off Russian gas supplies. What happens when you add to that the prospect of hurricane-related disruptions to Lower 48 production or LNG exports, or both? Much of that will come down to the timing, path and strength of any impending storms. That’s a lot of unknowns, and where there is that much uncertainty, volatility is sure to follow. With the National Hurricane Center (NHC) predicting high chances of potential cyclone development as early as later this week, today’s RBN blog considers the possible implications for the U.S. gas market balance.
Thursday, 8/25/2022
Category:
Renewables
Conversations about decarbonization and the energy transition often turn to the transportation sector, which accounted for about 27% of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2020. Electric vehicles typically dominate these talks, but alternative fuels like renewable diesel (RD) and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) also come up, not only because of their lower emissions but also because they are considered “drop-in” replacements for conventional diesel and jet fuel. Policies at the state and national level have already encouraged some production growth, but a tax credit established as part of the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provides a major incentive for cleaner fuels. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the new 45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit (CFPC), how it will impact the production of RD and SAF, and why facilities that can produce fuels with the lowest carbon intensity (CI) stand to benefit the most.
Wednesday, 8/24/2022
Category:
Natural Gas
We’ve seen this movie one too many times. Just when natural gas prices are rallying across the world to multi-year or historic highs, another monkey wrench gets thrown into the workings of the Western Canadian gas market, imploding its suite of price markers. Last week, gas prices in Western Canada collapsed to mere pennies and even went negative for a time due to an unfortunate combination of pipeline restrictions and record-high production — a situation that will cost the region’s gas industry billions if left unchecked. In today’s RBN blog, we examine the root cause of the latest price collapse and when a turnaround might be expected.
Tuesday, 8/23/2022
Category:
Financial
Out of the long, brutal struggles to create a British nation in the Medieval Ages arose the legend of Camelot, an idyllic kingdom that for a “brief shining moment” enabled its inhabitants to bask in peace and prosperity. In the second quarter of 2022, U.S. oil and gas producers that had, for the last two decades, been roiled with severe price volatility, recession, environmental pressures, investor hostility and a pandemic, finally found their Camelot. Rising oil prices and surging natural gas realizations drove per-unit revenues to a 15-year high, and nearly nine out of 10 of the incremental dollars fell straight to the bottom line as producers successfully wrangled inflation to keep costs under control. The result was E&P coffers overflowing with record earnings and cash flows. However, Camelot, in the words of the 1960 musical, was “a fleeting wisp of glory,” and clouds are emerging on the horizon for U.S. E&Ps in the third quarter. In today’s RBN blog, we catalog Q2 2022 results and preview the issues that could impact third-quarter earnings.
Monday, 8/22/2022
Category:
Renewables
It wouldn’t be hard to work up a checklist of the qualities that a major clean hydrogen hub should offer. Easy access to low-cost natural gas for methane reforming, and to carbon sequestration sites for captured carbon dioxide (CO2). Plentiful wind and solar energy to power electrolyzers that split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Lots of available land for clean hydrogen and ammonia production facilities. Nearby refineries and other industrial consumers of hydrogen. And don’t forget export terminals, because the rest of the world will continue to demand U.S.-sourced energy. Well, as we discuss in today’s RBN blog, Corpus Christi seems to check all the boxes.
Sunday, 8/21/2022
Category:
Natural Gas
The momentum for U.S. LNG right now is powerful. With Europe’s efforts to wean itself off Russian natural gas boosting long-term LNG demand and Asian consumption expected to grow even further, there has been a strong push for new LNG projects in North America. So far, that has helped propel two U.S. projects, Venture Global’s Plaquemines LNG and Cheniere’s Corpus Christi Stage III, to reach a final investment decision (FID). With these two projects getting a green light, total export capacity in the U.S. will be at least 130 MMtpa — or 17.3 Bcf/d — by mid-decade. That top-line export capacity could be much higher, however. There are currently eight U.S. Gulf Coast pre-FID projects with binding sales agreements, and a handful of projects that are fully subscribed in credible non-binding deals. If all those projects go forward, it would add a staggering 86 MMtpa (11.4 Bcf/d) of export capacity to the U.S., pushing the total toward 30 Bcf/d, or 225 MMtpa. In today’s RBN blog we look at U.S. LNG under development, how high export capacity could go, and the implications for the U.S. natural gas market.