Katy hub

In the short term, Permian natural gas will be dealing with the aftermath of Harvey and what it might do to associated gas production from crude oil wells being curtailed due to refinery downtime and storage capacity issues.  But that will soon be behind us, and at that point Permian natural gas production will resume its steep upward trajectory. Just a few months ago, the gas market was still sharpening pencils on potential gas takeaway constraints in West Texas, but congestion in the Waha gas market now appears as likely as another winning season for Alabama football. Where will this tide of natural gas end up? Until a few days ago, the Agua Dulce Hub in South Texas was Number 1 on the list, but a new project has thrown the Katy Hub into the mix as a potential destination. Today we analyze an interesting approach to relieving Permian natural gas market constraints.

The natural gas pipeline grid in Texas is undergoing a historic transformation as interstate pipelines designed to move gas north and east from the Gulf Coast region are being reversed, enabling Marcellus/Utica gas to flow to LNG export markets in Louisiana and Texas, and via Texas for pipeline export to Mexico.   With a history of oil and gas production going back more than 100 years, no region in the world has a more convoluted network of pipelines than Texas.  The state can be viewed as a dense “spaghetti bowl” of interconnected interstate and intrastate systems that defies traditional gas market analysis, in part because intrastate pipelines do not post receipts and deliveries on their systems as required by federally regulated interstate pipelines.  However, it is possible to assess the dynamics of regional flows and capacities by examining the morass of flow data available from interstate pipelines in the region that connect to the intrastates. To help make sense of this data, RBN has developed a simplified model that facilitates an understanding of Texas natural gas flows and capacities that we call (unsurprisingly since it’s RBN) the Fretboard Model because the region’s interstate pipelines and capacity constraints look (with just a bit of artistic license) very much like a guitar fretboard.  In today’s blog, we introduce this model.

Planned liquefaction/LNG export facilities along the South Texas coast and growing demand from Mexico’s electric power sector together will require several billion cubic feet/day of additional U.S. natural gas over the next three to five years. Gas producers from the Marcellus/Utica to the Permian are targeting these markets, but there are questions regarding whether the Lone Star State’s existing pipeline infrastructure is sufficient to deliver all that gas to these critically important export markets. Part of the solution will be optimizing the use of Texas’s impressive—but sometimes misunderstood intrastate pipeline networks, particularly the far-reaching systems operated by Enterprise, Energy Transfer and Kinder Morgan. Today, we discuss one part of the solution, an inexpensive but impactful Kinder Morgan project that will enable about 1 Bcf of natural gas from various sources to reach South Texas LNG exporters and Mexico on KM’s intrastate system.