RBN Energy
Early Access
Friday, 8/29/2025
Thursday, 8/28/2025
U.S. interstates are populated with electronic displays that update drivers in real-time on traffic conditions, road closures, weather alerts and other important events. If there was a sign for executives steering our nation’s oil and gas producers, it would likely read “Poor Visibility, Slow Down Ahead.” After a short-lived price rally in Q1 2025, the industry faced lower commodity realizations and macroeconomic headwinds in Q2 2025, which spooked investors and hardened a cautious investment approach. In today’s RBN blog, we analyze the latest results of the 39 major U.S. E&P companies we cover and look at what’s ahead.
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, 8/29/2025 (3:15 pm)
US oil and gas rig count ended the month of August with another week-on-week decline, dropping two rigs for the week ending August 29 and marking the fourth week of declines this month according to Baker Hughes data.
By Martin King - Friday, 8/29/2025 (12:45 pm)
For the week of August 29, Baker Hughes reported that the Western Canadian gas-directed rig count fell one to 55 (blue line and text in left hand chart below), 12 less than one year ago and is the lowest for this time of year since 2020.
Daily Energy Blog
Wednesday, 4/02/2025
Category:
Natural Gas
After a record run of negative pricing last spring and summer, the Permian Basin collectively cheered as WhiteWater’s Matterhorn Express pipeline began flowing last October, bringing much-needed takeaway capacity to the area. Cash prices at the Waha Hub rebounded and the basin had a relatively uneventful winter, but prices began dropping in early March and have once again traded below zero for most of the past few weeks. This has taken the market somewhat by surprise, as many expected the impact of Matterhorn’s startup to last more than a few months. Prices jumped back above zero on Wednesday and above $1/MMBtu on Thursday, but with major pipeline maintenance coming next week, any relief is likely to be short lived. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at what’s driving the recent run of negative pricing in the Permian Basin and what it means until additional infrastructure comes online next year.
Tuesday, 4/01/2025
Category:
Crude Oil
As crude oil pipelines from the Permian to the Gulf Coast edge closer to full utilization, it’s becoming a challenge for producers and shippers alike. Amid this capacity crunch, converting Enterprise’s Midland to ECHO 2 (M2E-2) pipeline back to crude oil service can’t come quickly enough. In today’s RBN blog — the latest in our series on Permian crude oil pipelines — we discuss Enterprise’s crude oil footprint from West Texas to Houston.
Monday, 3/31/2025
Category:
Sponsored
Over the next couple of years, six new pipelines and expansion projects will bring 11.8 Bcf/d of incremental natural gas supplies to the Texas/Louisiana Gulf Coast. During the same period, more than 8 Bcf/d of new LNG export capacity will move that gas to international markets. The impact of this onslaught of gas flows will be anything but orderly. Inflows will never equal outflows. Pipes will arrive early with supplies, with LNG terminals coming along later. Gas flows will shift from west to east, and north to south, in chaotic patterns that will upend historical price relationships. Is there any way to make sense of all this? There sure is, as we discuss in today’s RBN blog. All you need is the right arrow pointing the way.
Friday, 3/28/2025
Category:
Natural Gas
Two factors — public concern about soaring utility bills and President Trump’s strong opposition to offshore wind — are forcing New England to rethink its once-ambitious plans for a renewables-heavy electric grid and reassess how to meet its power-generation needs in the late 2020s and early 2030s. One possibility would be to expand the region’s access to piped-in natural gas, but midstreamers’ previous efforts to add pipeline capacity were beaten back time and again. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss New England’s ongoing debate about what to do next.
Thursday, 3/27/2025
Category:
Financial
Most conversations and analyses around hydrocarbon prices tend to focus on crude oil, if for no other reason than the direct exposure we experience when filling up at the pump. After the commodity price crash in early 2020, which threatened the financial stability of U.S. E&Ps, a subsequent surge in oil prices drove a remarkable recovery, winning back investor confidence in the industry. Crude realizations have subsequently declined, slowly but steadily eroding producer results. Fortunately, the outlook for natural gas, which represents just under half the total output of our 38 U.S. E&Ps, has begun to brighten. In today’s RBN blog, we analyze Q4 2024 results for the major E&Ps we cover with a focus on the impact of rising natural gas prices.
Here, There and Everywhere - Despite Trade Frictions, Enbridge Forges Ahead with Pipeline Expansions
Wednesday, 3/26/2025
Category:
Crude Oil
It might seem crazy to talk about expanding crude oil and diluent pipeline systems between Canada and the U.S. amid what could escalate into an all-out trade war between the two nations. However, Enbridge, one of the largest pipeline operators in the world, is doing just that — actively planning and investing in pipeline expansions for its Mainline, Express-Platte and Southern Lights systems that would help move an ever-rising tide of Canada’s oil sands crude to market in the years ahead. We examine Enbridge’s plans in today’s RBN blog.
Tuesday, 3/25/2025
Category:
Government & Regulatory
Huge fees may be coming to ships built in China each time they arrive at a U.S. port. During a hearing in Washington on Monday, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) heard comments on its January 2025 study that laid out China’s strategy to achieve dominance in the global maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sectors — a strategy that has worked spectacularly. Since 1999, China’s share of the global shipbuilding market has soared from 5% to 50%. The USTR argues that China’s growing control over the maritime sector poses serious economic and national security risks to the U.S., making immediate action necessary. Proposed measures include imposing port fees from $1 million to $1.5 million per port entry. If implemented, the fees would substantially increase costs for exports and imports using Chinese ships. That could have incredibly disruptive impacts on most oceangoing transport, and energy products are no exception — unless they get an exception! In today’s RBN blog, we explore the background of the USTR’s China port-fee proposal and what it could mean for global energy logistics.
Monday, 3/24/2025
Category:
Natural Gas Liquids
More than 9 billion gallons of propane were delivered to U.S. consumer markets in 2024, primarily for residential heating and cooking. Demand is highly seasonal, which brings a unique set of challenges for buyers, especially on the wholesale side of the market, but production tends to be steadier over the course of the year. In today’s RBN blog, we show how wholesalers balance supply and demand and the critical role of the winter-to-summer ratio.
Friday, 3/21/2025
Category:
Natural Gas Liquids
A half dozen large midstream companies provide the full gamut of “wellhead-to-water” services for Permian-sourced natural gas and/or NGLs, and a couple of those offer the same for crude oil as well. For Enbridge and Plains All American, the clear focus has been on crude — pipelines, storage and marine terminals — though Enbridge has been rapidly expanding its portfolio of Permian-to-Gulf gas assets too. In today’s RBN blog, we look at what Enbridge and Plains have and what they are planning.
Thursday, 3/20/2025
Category:
Natural Gas
Mexico’s LNG sector has seen notable advancements in the past year, including new export project announcements and strategic investments. But many of the proposed LNG projects require extensive pipeline buildouts — no easy task south of the border and perhaps the biggest impediment most of the export projects face. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at where things stand with Mexico’s LNG sector and the export projects under development.
Wednesday, 3/19/2025
Category:
Natural Gas
Western Canada’s natural gas market never really seems to catch a break. Prices this winter have remained well below those across much of the rest of North America thanks to an all-too-common combination of insufficient pipeline export capacity from the region, bloated gas storage and robust supply growth. Even with forward price prospects for much of the rest of the continent looking buoyant, with more gas expected to head to expanding Gulf Coast LNG terminals and a storage-refill season that will be stronger than last year, price upside for Western Canada looks to be minimal at best and will be partly dependent on the rate of gas intake to LNG Canada, as we explain in today’s RBN blog.
Tuesday, 3/18/2025
Category:
Refined Fuels
The Trump administration announced on February 26 that it is ending Chevron’s permit to operate in oil-rich Venezuela, which will halt U.S. imports of Venezuelan crude by early April. These changes, combined with other recent developments, are likely to significantly impact complex U.S. Gulf Coast refiners relying on heavy crude. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss these impacts — an issue our Refined Fuels Analytics (RFA) practice examined in its recently updated Future of Fuels report.
Monday, 3/17/2025
Category:
Natural Gas Liquids
Crude-oil-focused drilling and completion in the Permian Basin is generating fast-increasing volumes of associated gas — and creating opportunities for midstream companies that provide “wellhead-to-water” services for natural gas and NGLs. ONEOK has become a much bigger player in this space via several transformational acquisitions and MPLX has been making moves of its own. (The companies also are working together on a new LPG export terminal — and more.) In today’s RBN blog, we continue our review of Permian-to-Gulf midstreamers’ expansion plans with a look at what ONEOK and MPLX are up to.
Friday, 3/14/2025
Category:
Crude Oil
The Rocky Mountain region (PADD 4), with a population that is both smaller and more spread out than other parts of the Lower 48, consumes only around 650 Mb/d of refined products — just one-fourth the volume of the next-smallest PADD. That limits the need for refinery capacity, which matches the region’s average annual consumption and is only outstripped in the summer months. Yet, the Shale Revolution has impacted the Rockies as much as any other region, boosting production in the Denver-Julesburg (DJ) and Uinta basins, and the Montana portion of the Bakken. At the same time, the area has also seen increasing volumes coming in from PADD 2 and Canada. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at how PADD 4 dispenses these barrels and its role in balancing continental crude oil supply and demand.
Thursday, 3/13/2025
Category:
Natural Gas
President Trump’s flurry of executive orders upon returning to office included one titled “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential,” which aims to see the realization of the long-dormant Alaska LNG project, a multibillion-dollar plan to bring natural gas several hundred miles from Alaska’s North Slope to Anchorage and Cook Inlet for eventual liquefaction and export. The president’s endorsement renewed interest in a project that has been on the drawing board for more than 30 years. In today’s RBN blog, we look at why there is renewed interest in the project, some of the hefty challenges it would need to overcome, and why many still see it as a long shot.