Sunoco Logistics

This week the first Gulf Coast ethane export cargo will depart Morgan’s Point, Enterprise Products Partners’ new export terminal on the Houston Ship Channel.  This is a history-making event for at least three reasons.  First, it inaugurates ethane exports from the Gulf Coast, only five months after the first-ever U.S. overseas ethane exports out of Sunoco Logistics’ Marcus Hook, PA, terminal.  Second, it launches a battle for Mont Belvieu ethane, to be fought between ethane exporters and new ethane-only steam crackers (ethylene plants) that will be coming online along the Texas/Louisiana coast over the next couple of years.  And third, Morgan’s Point is not just another export terminal.  It is a location steeped in Texas history, known in the 1830s as New Washington, with an important role in the Battle of San Jacinto – decisive battle of the Texas Revolution -- and legend has it, inextricably tied to the Texas anthem “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”   In today’s blog we examine the upcoming fight between ethane exporters and U.S. crackers.

Just a few years ago, the possibility of overseas ethane exports was almost incomprehensible. Lack of infrastructure, high handling costs, no suitable ships and minimal market demand made ethane exports seem extremely unlikely.  But then the shale gas boom transformed the ethane market.  Now U.S. ethane production greatly exceeds demand and each day hundreds of thousands of barrels of ethane are being rejected into the natural gas stream.  Consequently a few pioneers are hammering through the challenges associated with overseas ethane exports, including the construction of specialized tankage, loading facilities, ships and unloading facilities.  And international chemical companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to modify olefin crackers to use the cheap feedstock.  Now the first of those pioneers has made it to the new ethane frontier. In today's blog we examine the impact of imminent ethane exports from the Energy Transfer/Sunoco Terminal at Marcus Hook, PA.

Refiners operating in the Permian Basin enjoyed healthy margins over the past four years as takeaway pipeline congestion discounted the price of local crude compared to market centers at Cushing, OK or the Gulf Coast. Although that trend reversed for a few months this summer when a shortage of crude at Midland caused prices to spike higher, the market is once again favoring local purchasers. As a result, refiners have invested in infrastructure to increase deliveries of local crude to their refineries as well as leveraging their gathering pipelines to double as takeaway routes for producers shipping outside the basin.  Today we continue our review of Permian infrastructure build out.

The acquisition of Williams Companies by Energy Transfer will create a midstream behemoth. The deal is expected to close during the first half of 2016 subject to regulatory approval. Once complete the main holding company Energy Transfer Corp (ETC) will be a C-Corp entity sitting atop Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs – see Masters of the Midstream for a more complete explanation of these structures) containing the assets of Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), Williams Energy Partners (WPZ), Sunoco LP (SUN) and Sunoco Logistics (SXL). The combined natural gas pipeline network will carry as much as 45% of U.S. Lower 48 dry gas production. Today we take a look at the natural gas infrastructure assets in the deal.

In a $38 Billion transaction announced September 28, 2015, Energy Transfer Equity (ETE) agreed to gobble up The Williams Companies in a deal expected to close during the first half of 2016. The combination of these two companies creates a U.S. midstream giant that will own infrastructure including gas pipelines carrying as much as 45% of U.S. Lower 48 dry gas production, processing capacity producing16% of domestic natural gas liquids (NGL’s) and crude oil pipelines in the Permian, Eagle Ford and Bakken. Today we take a look at the liquids infrastructure assets in this giant deal and provide a download of RBN’s maps of the infrastructure involved.

Blueknight Energy Partners’ 100 Mb/d Knight Warrior pipeline is currently under construction and due online in Q2 2016 to deliver crude from the developing Eaglebine play to the Houston Ship Channel. It complements the 60 Mb/d Sunoco Logistics Eaglebine Express pipeline to Nederland, TX that opened last December. Today we discuss how the promising but relatively complex nature of Eaglebine drilling could scare off producers until prices move substantially higher than today’s levels.

The recently (re)announced Kinder Morgan Utica Marcellus Texas Pipeline (UMTP) is that company’s second iteration of a natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline from Ohio to the Texas Gulf Coast. If built – the project would facilitate delivery of mixed NGLs (y-grade) and purity NGL products from the Utica to the Gulf Coast - where the liquids could be further processed and/or exported. Those purity products could include both plant and lease condensates. But as we discuss today - the project might currently be more attractive to NGL shippers anxious to get better prices for stranded northeast production than it is to condensate producers.

The flood of domestic light shale crude showing up at the Texas Gulf Coast by pipeline in the past two years is not best matched to most refineries in the region that are configured to run heavier crude. But flows across the Gulf Coast to refineries in the Mississippi Delta more suited to process light crude are constrained by a lack of pipeline capacity between Texas and Louisiana. New domestic shale crude has been delivered to eastern Gulf Coast terminals such as St. James by rail but narrowing coastal differentials to inland prices have reduced the CBR advantage. Today we detail how new pipeline projects promise to increase the flow of crude from Texas to the Eastern Gulf.

On Thursday, November 20, the ratio of ethane to natural gas hit its lowest point since 2005 – ethane only 64% of natural gas on a BTU basis. According to OPIS, the price of ethane in Mont Belvieu was 19.25 cents/gallon while natural gas at Henry Hub was $4.49/MMbtu. At this level it makes economic sense to reject as much ethane as possible. All the rest of the ethane that gets produced needs to find a use, a purpose, a home. Demand for ethane as a feedstock for the petrochemical industry will rise considerably as new ethane cracking capacity comes online, mostly in the 2017-19 period. Even so, ethane rejection is likely to remain commonplace for the foreseeable future. But what about ethane exports, not just to Canada but to Western Europe, Asia and other overseas markets? Today we update developments on the ethane export front.

A drum we have been beating with some regularity here at RBN  is that, thanks to fast-rising production in the Eagle Ford, Permian, Marcellus/Utica and other “wet” natural gas plays, the US is awash in ethane and will become even more so. As it turns out, we now expect that “potential ethane” production will increase even more quickly than we had previously thought, to 2 MMb/d in 2016 and 2.6 MMB/d in 2019. We also believe that while the half dozen world-class steam crackers expected to come online the next few years will use some of the increased output, there will still be a lot of surplus ethane left to export—or, failing that, to reject into natural gas. In today’s blog, we provide updates on ethane production, economics and rejection, and on the potential for new ethane-consuming steam crackers and increasing ethane exports.