One of the most discussed and often misunderstood aspects of the midstream world is the pipeline open season. It is how midstreamers go out to the market to test shipper interest and lock in commercial commitments for new projects and can effectively determine whether a project will get built.
The White House gave the green light on March 18 for foreign-flagged tankers to move crude oil and refined products between U.S. ports by waiving the Jones Act. In less than two months, about 60 waivers have been recorded. Today, we’ll dig into the new patterns that have emerged.
It’s been quite a year already, with energy markets roiled by the Iran war. To survive such swings, you need a deep understanding of market fundamentals so that you can anticipate their effects. That’s today’s subject and the focus of our upcoming School of Energy: Foundations.
It’s been quite a year already, with energy markets roiled by the Iran war. To survive such swings, you need a deep understanding of market fundamentals so that you can anticipate their effects. That’s today’s subject and the focus of our upcoming School of Energy: Foundations.
It’s been eight weeks since the steady flow of crude oil and refined product tankers out of the Persian Gulf ended, and the impacts on refineries and product suppliers in key parts of the world are becoming clearer. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the state of refining in the U.S., Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
The West Coast, particularly California, has been the U.S. region hardest hit by the war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, particularly regarding the Golden State’s ability to obtain refined product imports. Today, we discuss the impact of the closure.
The ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Iran and the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz isn’t just stranding significant volumes of refined products in the Persian Gulf. It’s also resulting in potentially extensive and long-lasting damage to some refineries there and trapping crude oil that Asian refiners depend on.
A lot of attention has been paid to the massive volumes of crude oil and LNG currently trapped in the Persian Gulf. What’s sometimes overlooked, however, is that Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are also major exporters of refined products, and that they and Qatar also send out copious amounts of LPG.
Despite ongoing efforts by Pemex to boost production of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, the Mexican market still depends on imports from the U.S. for just over half of its refined product needs. And moving nearly 700 Mb/d of transportation fuels to population centers south of the border is no easy task.
A major theme under the second Trump administration has been “energy dominance,” with a focus on expanded drilling, increased oil and gas production, and an easier path to project approvals. Today, we explain why the goal of “energy dominance” doesn’t mean going it alone, especially when it comes to the refining sector.
