trucking

Familiar corporate names like Cummins, Freightliner and Waste Management have joined forces with dozens of less-familiar public companies and startups to form what some might call a new U.S. industry. Thousands of commercial trucks powered by compressed natural gas (CNG) are on the roads nationwide, many of them filling up at dedicated fueling stations offering a compressed form of renewable natural gas (RNG), a cellulosic biofuel typically sourced from landfills and dairy farms. In today’s RBN blog, the third and final in our series on the D3 Renewable Identification Number (RIN), we show how this young industry could emerge as a commercial success for cellulosic biofuels, although political and regulatory risk remains. 

A primary objective of the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), when it was expanded back in 2007, was to stimulate by 2022 the production of at least 16 billion gallons/year of gasoline and diesel made from cellulosic biomass in conversion plants resembling small refineries. After getting lots of headlines in the early days of renewable fuels, that vision faded into the background and attention shifted to the use of ethanol in gasoline and the production of diesel from soybean oil, but cellulosic biofuels — non-food crops and waste biomass like animal manure, corn cobs, corn stalks, straw and wood chips — are back in the spotlight thanks to a regulatory quirk. In today’s RBN blog, the first in a series, we review the unusual history of the D3 Renewable Identification Number (RIN), the subsidy designed to stimulate cellulosic biofuel production, and the recent impact on heavy-duty trucking. 

China’s appetite for crude oil has been lower than expected this year, largely due to a slowing economy and the increased adoption of electric vehicles (EVs). And the U.S.’s #1 economic and geopolitical rival is in the midst of another transition that could further weaken crude oil demand: Heavy-duty trucking in China is increasingly being powered by LNG instead of diesel. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the trend toward LNG-fueled trucking in China and what it could mean for LNG exporters in the U.S. 

California faces a broad set of challenges when it comes to reducing wildfires, which have been increasingly frequent and intense over the last decade — impacting the lives of those dealing with the threat, not to mention effects on the economy and environment. Separately, the state has been working to reduce transportation-related pollution and incentivize the development and use of a wide array of alternative fuels. Yosemite Clean Energy (YCE), which announced plans for its first plant site in late 2021, has an approach it says will not only make the state a cleaner and safer place but also foster the development of new transportation fuels. In today’s RBN blog, we look at YCE’s plans to turn wood waste into renewable fuels, how its unique “Stump to Pump” approach relies on partnerships with local communities, and the green hydrogen and renewable natural gas it plans to produce at sites across California.

The Permian Basin’s crude oil market over the last 18 months has exhibited so many dynamic changes that dedicated observers may be suffering from a bit of neck strain, if not outright whiplash. We’ve seen production rise at an unprecedented rate, followed by a period of slower growth. We’ve also watched the Permian very quickly transform from a region desperate for new long-haul pipeline capacity to a hotbed for midstream investment and infrastructure growth. While we’ve closely tracked these big-picture changes, a lot of other, smaller-scale knock-on effects have been occurring too, with potentially significant implications for the basin’s supply pricing and transportation economics. Today, we explain why the changing fortunes of Permian crude haulers may benefit producers in the basin.

Crude oil pipelines out of the Permian are filled to capacity and the differentials between crude in Midland and in Cushing and Gulf Coast destination markets are wide and likely to widen. That has spurred Permian producers and shippers to consider every possible option for moving incremental barrels out of the play, including two old short-term standbys: tanker trucks and crude-by-rail. Cost isn’t a major issue — the price spread and the Permian’s low break-evens will probably justify the higher expenses associated with trucking and railing crude. But that doesn’t mean that badly needed truck and rail capacity can appear with a poof as if by magic. No, even wads of cash may not be enough to quickly round up the hundreds — thousands? — of trucks and drivers that would be required to make a significant dent in the Permian’s takeaway shortfall. And developing brand new crude-by-rail terminals can take a year or more — too much time to address the play’s more immediate needs. Today, we continue our look at the frenzied efforts under way to move more Permian crude to market.

The shift from diesel to LNG (and sometimes CNG or field gas) as a fuel for drilling rigs and hydrofracturing pump engines is underway, and there is interest in having ships, locomotives and long-haul trucks run on natural gas from LNG too. But before investing in new or converted engines that can run on natural gas or on a diesel-natural gas blend, diesel and shipping fuel users need answers to three questions: What will it cost? How much will we save? And—this is important, too--is the LNG infrastructure sufficiently robust to support the switch?Today we explore the economic ins and outs of converting from diesel to gas, and describe the current state of domestic LNG supply infrastructure.

This is how midstreamers at the Platts conference talk about the Eagle Ford?  Sounds more like a description of my wife’s Havanese after a bath than a description than one of the most prolific NGL plays on the continent.  But these weren’t really complaints.  It was just midstreamers pointing out some of the challenges of life in the Eagle Ford NGL business, circa 2012.  And of course, these are certainly white collar problems.  This is another blog based on presentations at the Platts Midstream conference.  Today we’ll look at each of the three issues from the title and pick a couple of examples of solutions and strategies being used by players in the South Texas area.