midstreamers

With more than 9 billion gallons of propane delivered to U.S. customers each year, moving those volumes to their final destination is a complex task involving pipelines, rail cars, storage (be it underground or above ground) and, ultimately, trucks. Several major factors help determine the quantity and price of propane delivered to end-use customers, including the seasonality of demand versus the steady nature of production. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss highlights from our new Drill Down Report on propane. 

The U.S. propane market may appear seamless at times, but a lot is happening just below the surface to determine consumer pricing. Key factors include the high seasonality of demand, supply contracts that must account for the seasonality of product delivery and the price, and the cost of transportation from terminals to bulk plants to end users. In today’s RBN blog, we will review the final delivery steps, the impact of transportation costs, and how contracts are priced.

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. 

More than 9 billion gallons of propane were delivered to U.S. consumer markets in 2024, primarily for residential heating and cooking. The final step in propane’s pathway to the retail market is managed by a large group of companies known as retailers, which range in size from “mom and pop” operations that run only a couple of cars serving a local market to companies with fleets of cars and multiple supply points. As we detail in today’s RBN blog, the propane business requires a huge focus on logistics and personal relationships. 

The domestic U.S. propane market annually accounts for roughly 9 billion gallons of demand. The pathway from the wellhead to an end user is complex, involving pipelines, railcars, trucks and tankers, and wholesalers are essential in moving all that propane from fractionators and refineries to propane terminals. A wide variety of players fulfill this role, from large publicly traded companies to smaller private ones, but as we detail in today’s RBN blog, they all do one thing — move propane one step closer to its retail destination. 

With a staggering 3.8 MMb/d of inbound pipelines, 3.1 MMb/d of outbound pipes and 94 MMbbl of storage capacity in between, the crude oil hub in Cushing, OK, surely has earned its nickname, “Pipeline Crossroads of the World.” But Cushing is more than a mere collection of pipelines and tankage, and crude doesn’t simply flow through the hub like cars and trucks flowing through a Los Angeles freeway interchange. Instead, much of the crude coming into Cushing from Western Canada, the Bakken, the Rockies, the Permian and other plays is mixed and blended within the hub, primarily to meet the specific needs of U.S. refineries and the export market regarding API gravity, sulfur content and the like. In other words, what goes in can be materially different than what goes out. Today, we continue our look at the central Oklahoma hub with an examination of the characteristics of the crude flowing in and out, and how they differ.

The crude oil hub in Cushing, OK, is a big numbers kind of place: 94 million barrels of storage capacity, 3.8 MMb/d of inbound pipelines and 3.1 MMb/d of outbound pipes, not to mention a spaghetti bowl of connections between the many tank farms within greater Cushing. To truly understand the “Pipeline Crossroads of the World” — what it does and how it works — you need to know the hub’s assets and how they fit together. Today, we continue our series with a look at the pipes that transport crude from Cushing to Gulf Coast refineries and export docks, and to inland refineries in the Midcontinent, the Midwest and what you might call the Mid-South — places like Memphis, TN; El Dorado, AR; and Shreveport, LA.

Cushing doesn’t call itself the “Pipeline Crossroads of the World” for nothing. Pipelines with the capacity to handle one-third of total U.S. crude oil production flow into the central Oklahoma hub from a number of production areas, including the Alberta oil sands, the Bakken, the Rockies, the Permian and the nearby SCOOP/STACK. There’s almost as much pipeline capacity out of Cushing, with more than half of it bound for Texas’s Gulf Coast refineries and export docks and most of the rest headed for refineries in the Midcontinent and Midwest. Cushing’s inbound and outbound pipes connect to a staggering 94 million barrels of crude oil storage in about 350 aboveground tanks — each company’s set of tanks with its own unique degree of interconnectedness. Today, we continue our series on Cushing with a look at the large, medium and small pipelines that flow into the hub, and what they transport.

The crude oil hub at Cushing, OK, has more than 90 MMbbl of tankage, 3.7 MMb/d of incoming pipeline capacity and 3.1 MMb/d of outbound pipes. That’s an impressive amount of infrastructure by any standard. The real marvel of the place, though, is the variety of important roles it plays and services it provides for a wide range of market participants — producers, midstream companies, refiners and marketers, as well as producer/marketer and refiner/marketer hybrids. To truly understand Cushing — what it does and how it works — you need to know the hub’s assets and how they fit together. Today, we continue a series on the “Pipeline Crossroads of the World” with a look at the companies that own Cushing storage capacity and how that storage is put to use.