Volume

US waterborne exports of propane, normal butane and isobutane – known collectively as liquefied petroleum gases or LPGs - are growing rapidly – up from 148 Mb/d in 2011 to 316 Mb/d in 2013. RBN expect these volumes to continue growing from 466 Mb/d this year to 825 Mb/d in 2018 as LPG production from gas plant processing increases more rapidly than domestic demand. The two largest export terminals operated by Enterprise and Targa will add 400 Mb/d of capacity between 2013 and 2018 and as many as 8 more terminals could be built. Today we begin a deep dive series into LPG shipping.

Last week (March 18, 2013) the CME NYMEX Henry Hub futures contract open interest reached a record 1.32 MM contracts. The previous high was in April 2012. Open interest represents the number of positions held by futures market participants that are not yet offset by another transaction, by delivery or by exercise. Today we look at what lies behind the run up in natural gas futures traffic.