Guernsey

Crude oil production from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin continues to grow, but U.S. PADD 2 refiners are already taking nearly as much as they can. Growing production could move into Cushing, OK, and Patoka, IL, but will there be enough pipeline capacity to reach the Gulf Coast? 

As crude oil production continues to grow in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, more pipeline capacity will be needed. The 590-Mb/d Trans Mountain Expansion in 2024 temporarily provided a period of surplus capacity, but that is shrinking. Today, we go through all the projects in the works.

A subsidiary of Bridger Pipeline is planning a 36-inch-diameter crude oil pipeline that would move up to 550 Mb/d of Canadian barrels 645 miles from the U.S.-Canada border to Guernsey, WY. The idea is to push crude south via existing rights-of-way, possibly reviving parts of Keystone XL in Alberta. 

In the U.S., crude oil trading hubs like Houston, Midland and Cushing get the lion’s share of the market’s attention. But travel a bit further north and you can find one of the more unusual and liquid crude markets in the country — Guernsey, WY — a focal point for producers in Western Canada, North Dakota, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. Over the last few months, Guernsey differentials have tightened significantly, finally flipping to a premium to Cushing. We have seen this phenomenon occur before, most notably seven years ago after the startup of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the recent movement in Guernsey differentials and what the future could hold for the often-overlooked sales point. 

Tariffs have served as a cornerstone of President Trump’s economic vision. In the campaign, he said he could impose tariffs as high as 25% on all imported goods from Canada — including crude oil — and he could deliver on that promise at any time. This has raised concerns, especially for Canadian producers and U.S. refiners, who depend on the efficient and economical movement of barrels between the trading partners. In today’s RBN blog, we look at how much Canadian crude oil flows to the U.S., how those imports could be affected by tariffs, and how Canadian producers and U.S. refiners would share the financial impact. 

With crude prices in the $60s, oil-producing basins other than the Permian are finally seeing signs of life, and that includes the Rockies. But volumes flowing through the most important Rockies crude oil hub — at Guernsey, WY — are down. Moreover, the price of oil at Guernsey is up, trading at least flat and sometimes at a premium to the downstream market at Cushing, OK, suggesting that committed shippers are having to bid up the price at Guernsey to secure barrels for their downstream pipeline commitments. What about production from the nearby Powder River Basin? Well, Powder River oil production is up, and the rig count there is double what it was this time last year, so you might think there would be more than enough barrels at Guernsey. But not so. Who’s to blame? We need to look no further than the Bakken and the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) to discover our culprits. Today, we check in on the market at Guernsey and consider the impact of DAPL, the implications for Rockies crude oil outflows, and what it all means for Guernsey price differentials.

<p>Tallgrass Energy Partners’ Pony Express Pipeline provides capacity to move 230 Mb/d of Bakken crude oil received at Guernsey, WY all the way to the mega-hub at Cushing, OK, making it one of the most important pipeline corridors out of the Williston Basin.</p>

Crude production in the Niobrara shale formation is focused on two areas, the Denver-Julesburg (DJ) Basin in Northeast Colorado and the Powder River Basin (PRB) in Wyoming. Production has expanded in both basins (current output is about 435 Mb/d according to the Energy Information Administration) but much of the recent volume growth has come from the DJ basin. Expectations as recently as last year that production would expand to over 700 Mb/d in the next 4 years have been tempered by the crude price crash. A couple of large pipeline projects prompted last year by those production expectations have been cancelled since but others are still being built. Today we assess crude takeaway infrastructure in the DJ basin.

New pipeline projects to take crude out of the Rockies are starting to make the map look like a spider’s web. The latest proposal comes from Spectra Energy – owners of the Express and Platte pipelines that ship crude from Hardisty to Wood River via Guernsey, WY. Spectra hope to build a pipeline carrying light sweet crude from Guernsey to the Midwest pipeline hub at Patoka. The project would bypass Cushing and push more light crude to the east with potential access to Midwest refineries or even the East Coast. Patoka is also poised to become an origination point for shipments to the Gulf Coast. Today we review the Spectra project’s chances in a crowded pipeline field.