Panama Canal

Guyana’s crude oil production is surging, a trend that is expected to continue through the rest of the decade, and with no domestic refining industry its exports are booming. Shipments of Guyana’s medium-density, sweet-ish crude to the U.S. have ramped up and are increasingly making their way to the West Coast, which relies on imports given its lack of easy access to domestic shale crudes and limited regional output. In today's RBN blog, the second in a series, we‘ll examine where Guyana’s barrels are ending up and how they stack up against competing grades. 

The Panama Canal expansion completed in June 2016 was expected to allow much larger LNG tankers to move product from Sabine Pass LNG and other Gulf Coast export terminals through the canal to Asian and Latin American customers. But water levels at Gatun Lake, which provides the fresh water needed to operate the canal’s locks, have been well below normal in recent years, limiting opportunities to use the canal and complicating plans to ramp up LNG flows through it. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the challenges of moving LNG through the Panama Canal, how access to the waterway has been affected by drought and climate conditions over the past decade, and the impact on the LNG market. 

Two maritime passages long regarded as essential shortcuts in the complex world of commodity shipping have become a lot more challenging to navigate. Transiting the Red Sea has turned potentially deadly because of geopolitical tensions, while severe drought has critically reduced operations at the Panama Canal. Combined, these issues are being felt across the energy industry, impacting U.S. and foreign producers and shippers, redrawing trade flows, extending voyage times and, ultimately, raising transportation costs. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll examine and quantify the extra time and costs that shippers of U.S. crude and refined products must bear when using alternative routes. 

U.S. Gulf Coast LPG exports are sky-high, averaging just under 2 MMb/d in October, with nearly two-thirds of those volumes bound for Asia — a straight-shot trip once a Very Large Gas Carrier (VLGC) has passed through the Panama Canal. But an unprecedented dry spell has left the canal’s operators — and LPG shippers — in a real bind. The century-old maritime shortcut, which was expanded just a few years ago to accommodate more and larger vessels, uses massive amounts of fresh water, and to help conserve what’s left in the system’s main reservoir, the Panama Canal Authority (PCA) is ratcheting down how many ships can pass through each day. Worse yet, VLGCs are a low priority compared to other, larger vessels that pay higher tolls. That means that far fewer Asia-bound LPG ships will be using the Panama Canal for who knows how long. Instead, many shippers will need to make far longer, more costly trips through the Suez Canal or around the southern tip of Africa. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss what LPG shippers in particular are up against.

Things move fast in today’s propane market. Two weeks ago, Mont Belvieu propane was going for almost 95 cents/gal, up 86% from the mid-November price of only 51 c/gal. Midcontinent propane assessed in Conway, KS, spiked even higher, doubling over the same time frame to more than a dollar per gallon. But last week some air came out of the balloon, with Mont Belvieu and Conway prices pulling back to the low 80s. That didn’t last long either. This week, Mont Belvieu is back up to the high 80s c/gal. What gives? Is the market simply being bounced around by vacillating weather forecasts? Or is there more to it than that? Could it be that we are seeing symptoms of an export-driven transformation that is making propane markets behave quite different than they have in the past? Today, we’ll consider these questions and where the propane market may be headed in 2021 and beyond.

There are no absolute certainties in the energy industry, but one thing a lot of people are betting on is increasing demand for LNG in Asia. A long list of countries there — China, Japan, and South Korea among them — have been shifting from nuclear and coal-fired power generation to natural gas, and as they do, their demand for LNG will be mind-blowing. The U.S. has emerged as a major supplier, but shipping LNG from the Gulf Coast to Asia involves either transiting the busy and costly Panama Canal or taking much longer routes through the Suez Canal or around the Cape of Good Hope. All of that has helped spur interest in developing LNG export terminals in western Mexico that would pipe in and liquefy Permian gas, then ship it straight across the Pacific Ocean. Today, we discuss plans for a large-scale liquefaction/export project aimed squarely at Asian buyers.

It’s been a chaotic start to the new year for propane. In the past 12 days, the Mont Belvieu price is up over 15%, closing on Tuesday at 87 cents/gallon — the highest since October 2018. The usual culprit of winter weather has something to do with it, but not just in North America. Over the past couple of weeks, frigid temperatures in Asia, along with supply cutbacks from the Saudis, have supported U.S. propane exports to those markets, further tightening the U.S. supply/demand balance. But as is often the case these days, the market has another complicating factor. Delays transiting the Panama Canal have stacked up VLGCs — the vessels carrying U.S. propane to Asia — on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the waterway, pushing up charter rates to levels not seen in years. And on top of that, new transit-scheduling rules from the Panama Canal Authority will shove VLGCs to the back of the line, potentially making it even more difficult to get through the canal without significant delays. Today, we’ll explore these developments and what they may portend for the remaining weeks of winter.

On the 8th of October, the LNG carrier Golar Penguin loaded a cargo for RWE at the Freeport LNG terminal in Texas. Five days later, on October 13, the vessel was sitting just north of Panama. But then, the ship abruptly changed direction on the 14th and headed towards the Cape of Good Hope to deliver to the Far East. The reason for the diversion was that the vessel did not have a passage booked in the new locks of the Panama Canal and would have had to wait approximately nine days for its turn to transit, before heading across the Pacific Ocean to Asia. Since then, as queues of LNGCs for Panama Canal transits, both northbound (ballast) and southbound (laden) have developed, more ships have opted for the longer route. In today’s blog, we look at the delays that have developed surrounding the Panama Canal and the implications that its operations hold for global LNG trade.

The new, larger locks along the Panama Canal have been in operation for almost two years now, enabling the passage of larger vessels between the Atlantic and the Pacific. The timing couldn’t have been better — when the expanded canal locks came online in June 2016, exports of U.S. LPG, crude oil, gasoline and diesel were about to take off, and Cheniere Energy had only recently started shipping out LNG from its Sabine Pass export terminal in Louisiana, with Asian markets in its sights. Hydrocarbon-related transits through the canal soared through the second half of 2016, in 2017 and so far in 2018. But the gains are mostly tied to LPG and LNG — even the expanded canal isn’t big enough for the Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) favored for Gulf Coast-to-Asia crude shipments, or for fully laden Suezmax-class vessels. And there already are indications that the canal’s capacity may not be sufficient to meet future LNG needs. Today, we consider the expanded canal’s current and future role in facilitating U.S. hydrocarbon exports.

Growth in LNG supply and demand, the ongoing restructuring of the LNG sector and other factors are giving new significance to the nearly 500 specialized, oceangoing vessels that transport the supercooled, liquefied natural gas around the world. It used to be that the vast majority of LNG was delivered in milk run-like fashion under long-term contracts between suppliers and buyers, but that’s no longer the case. Now, the LNG market is much less structured and more fluid, with spot-market sales becoming more common and with the captains of some LNG-laden vessels not sure where they will end up as they head out of port. Today we describe the ins and outs of the shipping sector that moves hundreds of millions of metric tons of LNG annually.