Houston Ship Channel

There’s been a lot of talk lately about “green” and “blue” hydrogen becoming increasingly important players in the world’s lower-carbon energy future. Green and blue ammonia too, given that ammonia, with its high hydrogen content, is an efficient “carrier” of hydrogen when it needs to be delivered by ship, railcar, or truck. Also, ammonia itself — like hydrogen — can be used to power fuel cells and ammonia-combustion technology is being developed to use fuel ammonia at power plants. But for these low- or zero-carbon energy products to be adopted at a global scale, new infrastructure will need to be built, not only to enable their production and consumption but to transport them to where they’ll be consumed. Enter the just-finished ammonia terminal that Royal Vopak and Moda Midstream jointly developed at a prime site along the Houston Ship Channel. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the greenfield facility and its prospective role as a major import/export hub for ammonia.

Just a few months ago, crude oil producers and marketers were wondering whether there would be enough marine terminal capacity along the Gulf Coast to handle the steadily increasing volumes of crude that would need to be exported over the next few years. Now, with WTI prices hovering around $25/bbl and producers slashing their 2020 drilling plans, expectations of rising U.S. production and exports are out the window. Instead, what may be shaping up is a fierce competition among the owners of existing storage facilities and loading docks to offer the most efficient, lowest-cost access to the water. Today, we continue our series with a look at two large Houston-area facilities: the Houston Fuel Oil Terminal and Seabrook Logistics Marine Terminal.

Given that Permian natural gas prices are once again hovering under $0.50/MMBtu, Texas’s other gas markets get little attention these days. That doesn’t mean that major shifts in the Lone Star State’s natural gas supply and demand markets aren’t occurring outside of West Texas, however. In fact, it’s quite the contrary, particularly when it comes to the Houston Ship Channel gas market. There, major changes — new gas pipelines, pipeline reversals and new LNG trains — continue to influence flows and prices. Today, we provide an update on the latest in gas infrastructure changes along the Texas coast and their potential impacts on the region’s supply and demand balance.

When it comes to Texas natural gas markets, the Permian tends to steal the show. With its roughly 2 Bcf/d of annual production growth, constrained pipelines and absurdly cheap — sometimes even negative — pricing, it’s hard for the other gas hubs in the Lone Star State to garner much attention. However, the myopic focus on West Texas overlooks a noteworthy gas market shake-up taking place on the Texas Gulf Coast, where most of the Permian’s incremental gas production is headed and where multiple new liquefied natural gas facilities are coming online to move the new supplies into world markets. Also, new export pipelines are moving increasing volumes south of the border to Mexico. Today, we provide an update on the latest in Texas Gulf Coast gas infrastructure changes and their potential impacts on the region’s supply and demand balance.

This much seems clear: natural gas demand along Texas’s Gulf Coast will be rising sharply, as will gas supply from the Permian and other inland plays to the coast. The catch is that, like clumsy dance partners, the increases in demand — mostly from new liquefaction/LNG export terminals and Mexico-bound gas pipelines — and the incremental supply to the coast via new, large-diameter pipes from the Permian are likely to be out of sync. That shifting imbalance, in turn, may well cause volatility in Houston Ship Channel gas prices as they relate to Henry Hub. In fact, we’re already seeing signs of what’s to come. Today, we continue our look at upcoming gas infrastructure expansions and their potential impact on the greater Texas Gulf Coast gas supply-demand balance.

When it comes to Texas natural gas markets, the Permian has been getting much of the attention lately, with its rapid supply growth, limited pipeline takeaway capacity and sometimes negative prices. However, a wave of gas infrastructure development just starting to come online along the Texas Gulf Coast is set to steal some of the Permian’s spotlight over the next few months. Two large liquefaction/LNG export facilities are ramping up on the coast, as are the pipeline reversal projects designed to supply them. Also, three announced Permian-to-Gulf-Coast gas pipelines slated for completion over the next 24 months will move supply cross-state to destinations spanning the area from the Houston Ship Channel to the Agua Dulce Hub near Corpus Christi. That’s a lot of change ahead for these key Texas gas markets. Today, we turn our attention downstream of the Permian to the Houston Ship Channel market, including upcoming gas infrastructure expansions and their potential impact on the greater Texas Gulf Coast gas supply and demand balance.

This blog is based on research from Morningstar Commodities. A copy of the original report is available here.

U.S. crude exports out of the Gulf Coast averaged more than 2.4 MMb/d in the first four months of 2019 — using infrastructure that is increasingly constrained by a lack of deepwater ports. U.S. crude is reaching destinations worldwide, with large volumes traveling long distances to Asia on gargantuan 2-MMbbl vessels — Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) — loaded offshore by ship-to-ship transfer. Shipments to Europe are primarily on smaller Suezmax and Aframax vessels. Overall, the increased marine activity is testing the limits of existing infrastructure. Today, we analyze the past 16 months of crude export vessel movements and their impacts on Gulf Coast ports. (We’ll also be discussing this and other critical trends related to U.S. export markets live and in person tomorrow at xPortcon in Houston.)

In terms of raw tonnage, the Port of Houston is by far the busiest in the United States. The 52-mile-long Houston Ship Channel (HSC) — running from just outside downtown Houston out to an area between Galveston Island and Bolivar Peninsula — is the artery that enables the heavy ship traffic, much of it tied to crude oil, LPG, petroleum products and other hydrocarbons. But in the same way that Houston’s Interstate 45 traffic backs up during the morning commute, the ship channel traffic, which normally runs at about 60% of peak levels, can be (and has been) subject to delays when there’s an accident, visibility problems, or a slow-moving double-wide taking up two lanes. With energy-related export activity on the rise, efforts are underway to address those issues. Today, we begin a series on the issues facing some Texas ports and the measures being taken to help alleviate them.