Natural gas demand is building fast along the Gulf Coast. New LNG export terminals, data centers and power generation — and new pipelines to deliver the incremental gas. That’s all baked in. What’s still far from certain is where all the gas will come from, and how intense the battle for gas supply will become.
We’ve blogged about rising demand for natural gas in the southeastern U.S. and the pipeline projects being planned there. But there’s more to the story — a bigger picture — namely, that gas consumers in the region increasingly find themselves competing for supply with LNG exporters.
All roads lead to Louisiana in the natural gas market, and those roads have become increasingly crowded as LNG demand sucks in gas from other states. Today, we discuss Boardwalk’s Kosci Junction project and how it will impact the gas market in Louisiana, Mississippi and beyond.
Data centers are a buzzy topic in the energy industry, and while there is still a lot of fuzziness about what will actually get built and how much natural-gas-fired power will be needed to support these projects, there’s no doubt that major technology companies are well along in planning a number of massive data centers across the country. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll offer a snapshot of the plans announced by tech giants Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet (Google) and Meta (Facebook).
If all goes to plan, Texas’s isolated power grid will one day be connected to a pair of neighboring states via a massive transmission line called Southern Spirit. The project is designed to increase grid reliability, reduce blackouts and drive down energy bills, but it could be years before it becomes a reality. And while the transmission line will connect Texas with Louisiana and Mississippi, it is more akin to a drawbridge that can be raised or lowered as needed without subjecting the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid to federal oversight. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss what the Southern Spirit transmission line would mean for Texas.
When you’re in competition for billions in federal dollars, you need more than just a sensible approach and a strong economic case. You need a real competitive advantage. That’s what Hy Stor Energy believes it has with its proposed Mississippi Clean Hydrogen Hub (MCHH). It sees off-the-grid renewable power and extensive salt-dome storage capabilities as the surest path to decarbonization for a myriad of industrial needs. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the overall strategy behind the MCHH, the plan to produce 100% green hydrogen, and how Hy Stor hopes to beat the competition and secure Department of Energy (DOE) funding for a regional hydrogen hub.
A long, long time ago — or, more precisely, in the spring of 2014, when WTI was selling for more than $110/bbl — a handful of exploration and production companies were convinced they were onto something big in southwestern Mississippi and east-central Louisiana. There, they believed, the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) was poised to become the next Bakken, the U.S.’s premier shale play at the time, but even better for producers seeking more robust crude prices because of TMS’s very low gas-to-oil ratio — an oil cut north of 92%! –– and proximity to Gulf Coast refineries. While there had been a host of failed efforts by producers to wring out large volumes of premium-priced Louisiana Light Sweet (LLS) oil from the marine shale’s sedimentary silts and clays, the E&Ps felt in their bones that they were finally “cracking the code.” Then, at just the wrong time, came an oil price crash that set the whole industry back on its heels and activity in the TMS quickly slowed to a crawl. As we discuss in today’s RBN blog, an even smaller cadre of Tuscaloosa Marine Shale true believers is now banking on a production revival in the core of the play.
Waterborne crude shipments out of the Port of Corpus Christi are still growing this year – averaging 700 Mb/d as of May 2015. A veritable armada of barges and tankers has converged on South Texas to help move all that crude. A large part of the shipments are on small inland tank barges plying the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) - a 65 years old canal system that forms a vital backbone for Gulf Coast refiners. Today we describe the changing profile of barge shipments along the Gulf of Mexico.
While Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates of crude-by-barge traffic between the Midwest and the Gulf Coast have fallen sharply in the past 18 months, shipments down the Ohio River to Texas and Louisiana refineries have increased threefold – peaking at just under 70 Mb/d in May 2015. Growing barge shipments have been accompanied by midstream investment in barge dock facilities – especially in Ohio. Today we discuss increased shipments of ultra light crude condensate to Gulf Coast refineries on the Ohio River.
Producer pioneers in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) are finally figuring out how best to wring large volumes of Light Louisiana Crude from the oil-rich play’s notoriously complex geology. But are they “cracking the code” at just the wrong time, when crude prices are crashing and investors are shifting their focus to shale-play sweet spots with low drilling costs? Some say no; that fine-tuned completion formulas, declining drilling costs and a favorable tax environment make the TMS a “go”, even in these tough times. But others say yes; that it’s time to move on from the TMS, at least for now. Today we revisit the still-promising TMS in central Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi, and assesses whether the play many consider to be the next big thing needs to wait for higher oil prices to shine.
