Transportation constraints

Natural gas supply growth from the Permian Basin has flooded the Texas market in recent months, filling up takeaway pipelines and sending Waha spot prices to steep discounts relative to its downstream markets. Incremental demand — from exports to Mexico for gas-fired power generation as well as for power demand in Texas — has provided some relief for West Texas prices in recent weeks. But Texas power demand is seasonal and, while Waha’s exports to Mexico are expected to continue growing, it’s likely to be on a piecemeal basis. Thus, longer term, new Permian takeaway capacity will be needed to balance the Waha market. To that end, there are a bevy of takeaway projects vying to expand capacity from the Permian. These projects — their timing and routes — will drive the Texas gas flows and pricing relationships over the next several years. Today, we continue our series on Permian gas, this time delving into the various takeaway capacity projects competing to move Permian supply to market.

Production of crude oil and associated gas in the Permian continues to rise, despite pipeline takeaway constraints that have widened crude spreads and depressed natural gas prices at the Waha Hub. But while oil can be — and is being — transported by trucks and railroads when crude pipelines are full, natural gas needs to be either piped away or flared, and Permian gas production is now approaching the effective maximum takeaway capacity out of the basin. While a slew of new projects have been announced to relieve the Permian gas takeaway problem, the new capacity won’t arrive soon enough to keep Permian production from hitting the takeaway-capacity wall sometime in 2019.  Today, we begin a series examining Permian production trends and their implications for pipeline flows and pricing in Texas.

The Alberta natural gas market in Western Canada is in the midst of a seismic shift. Regional gas supply growth is accelerating. At the same time, export demand is eroding, but domestic demand — particularly from gas-fired power generation and oil-sands development — is on the rise. The incremental production along with the move toward intra-provincial demand has reconfigured flows and strained TransCanada’s infrastructure in the region. These factors resulted in extreme price volatility this past fall, a dynamic that’s likely to resurface in the New Year during low-demand times. Today, we continue our analysis of the Western Canadian gas market with a look at the changing transportation and flow dynamics in Alberta.

Western Canadian natural gas producers are increasingly facing oversupply conditions and price volatility. While competition and pushback from growing U.S. shale gas supply continues to be a factor, producers are now also contending with fresh problems closer to home — namely transportation constraints right where production is growing the most, in central Alberta. This fall, the Alberta market experienced extreme bottlenecks that left production stranded and sent area gas prices reeling. The ramp-up of winter heating demand has since helped ease the constraints, but the problems are likely to return in the spring when demand is lower, leaving producers exposed to the risk of severe price weakness again in 2018 and limited in their ability to grow supply. Today, we continue our look at what’s behind the local constraints and the implications for production growth and prices in Western Canada.