The first half of 2026 was a tale of two commodity markets as crude oil prices surged during the spring while natural gas prices retreated after an exceptionally strong winter rally. Today, we examine which oil and gas producers outperformed and why investors rewarded certain business models over others.
The E&Ps we track have retained investor support over the past three years despite a drop in oil prices. Their formula has been throttling back costs and investment to prioritize shareholder returns.
U.S. E&Ps have battled mightily to mitigate the impact on earnings and cash flows caused by the steady erosion in commodity prices, but concerning trends could impact future earnings.
A bullish long-term outlook for rising natural gas demand and pricing has partially mitigated the current deep concerns about the steep erosion of oil prices. However, short-term gas pricing has proven very volatile, as the near-month NYMEX price has yo-yoed dramatically in October and the Energy Information Administration recently cut its January forecast. In today’s RBN blog, we present a new metric that calculates the gas price sensitivity of major U.S. producers.
It’s well understood today that the U.S. natural gas market turned from potential domestic shortages to major LNG exports thanks to the Shale Revolution. What is not so well remembered is that the dramatic shift in the U.S. gas market wasn’t widely understood at the time and took several years to be accepted by the energy industry. In today’s RBN blog, we turn our attention to the beginnings of the Shale Revolution and how it allowed the U.S. to evolve into the world’s largest LNG exporter.
The popularity of weather derivatives has ebbed and flowed since their introduction in the late 1990s but trading activity has rebounded in recent years as the trading community has increasingly begun to reassess the need to hedge weather-related risks — everything from high temperatures and rainfall levels to power prices and cooling demand. In today’s RBN blog, we examine the role of weather derivatives, how they are used to hedge risk, and why they may be becoming increasingly important to the energy industry.
Over the past month, E&P executives have addressed shareholder and analyst concerns amid the murkiest market conditions since the onset of the pandemic in Q1 2020. One industry leader pointed out that on an inflation-adjusted basis, there have only been two quarters since 2004 when front-month oil prices have been as low as they are today (excluding 2020). In today’s RBN blog, we review what we heard from E&P brass — a measured response that melded confidence in the industry’s new fiscally conservative, shareholder-focused business model; modest spending reductions; and preparations for more substantial responses to future erosion in commodity pricing.
Californians love their cars. Be it a lemon-yellow Lamborghini whizzing around Los Angeles freeways or a Jeep cruising the Pacific Coast Highway, getting behind the wheel is not just about coming of age — it’s a life goal in the Golden State. California also typically has the costliest gasoline in the U.S. (except when Hawaii holds that title), exacerbated by occasional price spikes and supply squeezes. The state responded in 2023 with a new law — SB X1-2 — designed in part to increase gasoline price transparency and assess potential ways to ensure consistent and affordable supply. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll examine the California Energy Commission’s (CEC) first assessment of the law’s impact.
LNG commerce is composed of two primary models. One is the traditional point-to-point model, on which the industry was founded and still accounts for more than 60% of LNG trade. More recently, the portfolio model has emerged, pursued by upstream oil and gas majors, that would allow them to monetize their gas reserves by converting them to LNG and shipping the product worldwide in vessels under their control — an attractive strategy that also would allow them to increase their exposure in the LNG market to take advantage of international arbitrage opportunities. As such, they are always long in LNG and in the ships required to move it. However, the portfolio model is being infiltrated by a buyer community looking to become short-side portfolio players and increasingly committing to long-term offtake agreements or FOB sales, then shipping LNG not only to meet their domestic market needs but to take advantage of regional pricing differentials. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the rise of the short-side portfolio player model and ask who might prevail in a potential clash of titans over market share and dominance.
Many have argued that U.S.-sourced LNG can be instrumental in combating climate change by helping countries around the world replace coal-fired generation with natural gas-fired power. While this argument carries a lot of force in the eyes of many politicians and LNG marketers, the questions of exactly how — and to what extent — LNG can replace coal need to be asked. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at the challenges that the expanded use of LNG faces in countries with high coal utilization and the possible means of overcoming them.
