Mariner East

For a few years now, refineries in the eastern part of PADD 2 — feedstock-advantaged and capable of producing far more refined products than their regional market can consume — have been eyeing the wholesale and retail markets to their east in PADD 1. Their thinking has been, if they could just pipe more of their gasoline and diesel into Pennsylvania, upstate New York, and adjoining areas, they could sell the transportation fuels at a premium and take market share. Well, things are looking up for PADD 2 refineries pursuing this strategy. Not only has new pipeline access to the east been opening up, but PADD 1’s refining capacity has been shrinking fast, leaving East Coast refineries less able than ever to meet in-region demand. Today, we discuss recent developments in the battle for refined-product market share in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Over the past 10 years, there’s been a 14-fold increase in U.S. LPG exports: from 132 Mb/d, on average, in 2010 to 1.85 MMb/d so far in 2020. That extraordinary growth in export volumes couldn’t have happened without the development of a lot of new, costly infrastructure — everything from gas processing plants, NGL pipelines, and fractionators to LPG storage capacity, marine terminals, and ocean-going gas carriers. And that build-out continues, not only along the Gulf Coast but on the shores of the Delaware River near Philadelphia. Energy Transfer has been working to expand the throughput of its Marcus Hook terminal on the Pennsylvania side of the river, and Delaware River Partners, an affiliate of Fortress Transportation & Infrastructure, will soon be transloading LPG from rail tank cars onto ships across the Delaware in New Jersey. Today, we discuss Delaware River Partners’ Gibbstown Logistics Center.

Energy markets are constantly changing, but pipelines can take years to complete, and once they’re in the ground, that’s where they stay. Therefore, it’s critical for midstream companies to build as much flexibility as possible into their plans for new pipelines and other infrastructure, because you never know what the markets for crude oil, natural gas, NGLs and refined products might have in store. Energy Transfer apparently has that flexibility in mind as it’s been building out its Mariner East pipeline system across Pennsylvania to the Marcus Hook Industrial Complex (MHIC) near Philadelphia. Today, we consider recent developments regarding these key midstream assets in the Northeast and their still-evolving uses.

U.S. ethane exports have risen steadily over the past five years, from next to nothing in early 2014 to an average of 255 Mb/d in 2018 and 269 Mb/d in the first three months of this year. But unlike its heavier NGL siblings propane and butane, which are in demand globally as fuels and feedstocks, ethane’s only established use is in steam crackers specifically equipped to process it, so there are only a few countries where exported ethane is likely to end up. Also, the waterborne transport of ethane is generally limited to specially designed ethane carriers, and there aren’t many of those around because of ethane’s restricted market. All this makes for an export commodity that stands apart. Today, we review the evolution of U.S. ethane exports and the challenges to export growth posed by the U.S./China trade war.

Energy Transfer’s Mariner East pipeline system was supposed to help resolve a growing problem for producers in the “wet” Marcellus and Utica plays — namely, the need to transport increasing volumes of LPG out of the Northeast, especially during the warmer months, when in-region demand for LPG is low. The pipeline system also was meant to spur LPG and ethane exports out of Energy Transfer’s Marcus Hook marine terminal near Philadelphia. So how are things going? Well, the now five-year-old, 70-Mb/d Mariner East 1 pipeline, designed to transport ethane and propane, has been offline ever since a sinkhole exposed a part of the pipe late last month. The 275-Mb/d Mariner East 2 pipe is finally in operation and enabling a lot more LPG to move to Marcus Hook, but for now it can only run at about 60% of its capacity. And last Friday, a key Pennsylvania regulator suspended its review of outstanding water permit applications for the remaining piece of ME-2 and the parallel 250-Mb/d ME-2 Expansion project, and threw into doubt how long it might take to finish the Mariner East system and ramp it up to full capacity. Today, we begin a series on recent Mariner East developments and explain how, despite the mixed bag of Mariner East news in recent weeks, the situation is not as bad as it may seem.

Just a few years ago, the possibility of overseas ethane exports was almost incomprehensible. Lack of infrastructure, high handling costs, no suitable ships and minimal market demand made ethane exports seem extremely unlikely.  But then the shale gas boom transformed the ethane market.  Now U.S. ethane production greatly exceeds demand and each day hundreds of thousands of barrels of ethane are being rejected into the natural gas stream.  Consequently a few pioneers are hammering through the challenges associated with overseas ethane exports, including the construction of specialized tankage, loading facilities, ships and unloading facilities.  And international chemical companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to modify olefin crackers to use the cheap feedstock.  Now the first of those pioneers has made it to the new ethane frontier. In today's blog we examine the impact of imminent ethane exports from the Energy Transfer/Sunoco Terminal at Marcus Hook, PA.

Growing volumes of natural gas liquids (NGLs) produced in the Marcellus and Utica need to find a market – inside or outside the region.  Getting them to outside markets involves transportation by pipeline, rail, truck or barge. Local demand is either from traditional “legacy” customers that consume propane, butane and natural gasoline or from new ethane-consuming projects such as proposed ethylene crackers. What’s already been done to address the demand side of the NGL equation, and what’s being planned?  Today, we conclude our series on NGL infrastructure in the Upper Ohio River Valley with a look at where all those NGLs will be heading.

A drum we have been beating with some regularity here at RBN  is that, thanks to fast-rising production in the Eagle Ford, Permian, Marcellus/Utica and other “wet” natural gas plays, the US is awash in ethane and will become even more so. As it turns out, we now expect that “potential ethane” production will increase even more quickly than we had previously thought, to 2 MMb/d in 2016 and 2.6 MMB/d in 2019. We also believe that while the half dozen world-class steam crackers expected to come online the next few years will use some of the increased output, there will still be a lot of surplus ethane left to export—or, failing that, to reject into natural gas. In today’s blog, we provide updates on ethane production, economics and rejection, and on the potential for new ethane-consuming steam crackers and increasing ethane exports.

It is a familiar refrain in the shale era.  The U.S. produces more of a hydrocarbon commodity than it can use.  This time we are talking ethane, a natural gas liquid that is experiencing production constraints mostly due to the inability of U.S. petrochemical plants to use more of the feedstock. So why not just export the surplus?  Unlike crude oil there are no legal constraints on exports.  Unlike natural gas, you don’t need a $10 billion plant to convert it to a liquid (LNG) – ethane is already a liquid.   Unfortunately for many ethane wannabe exporters, ethane has its own infrastructure and market issues that must be resolved before it can be shipped overseas in significant quantities. Today we continue our blog series on the feasibility of overseas ethane exports.