Northeast Supply

The Colonial System is the largest refined products pipeline in the U.S. and delivers as much as 2.7 MMb/d from Gulf Coast refineries to destinations up the East Coast as far as New York. The southern section of the pipeline has been running full for over three years – leading Colonial to apportion space to shippers. A desire to gain shipper support to expand the pipeline led Colonial to propose new tariff clauses limiting trading practices that have developed around apportionment such as the sale of shipper history. Earlier this month (December 3, 2015) the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) postponed the latest Colonial tariff proposal pending a user conference to resolve differences between the pipeline and shippers on these issues. Today we explain the oddities of line space and shipper history trading.

As natural gas production growth in the U.S. has shifted from the Gulf Coast region to the Northeast’s   Marcellus and Utica shale, some have suggested that time may have passed by Louisiana’s Henry Hub as the national benchmark for all U.S. gas prices, and have questioned whether it can maintain its position as the third largest physical commodity futures contract in the world.   Should Henry be replaced by some pricing point in Appalachia?  Is Henry really in trouble?  In today’s blog, we continue our series looking at what makes Henry Hub tick with a closer look at the implications of changing physical and futures volumes at the hub.