Exactly the same product. Exactly the same day. In storage very nearby. Yet their prices diverged by 17 cents per gallon — a spread equivalent to $7 per barrel. That’s a very substantial difference for prices that typically are almost indistinguishable, differing by an average of only 0.3% in recent years. The disparity roiled the financial underpinnings of exports for over a month and busted numerous inventory hedges. Is this some rare commodity? Hardly. It’s Mont Belvieu propane, the Rock of Gibraltar benchmark propane price in the U.S., and to a great extent around the world. But during October there was a crack in that rock a mile wide.
Posts from Rusty Braziel
Tuesday, 9/10/2024
Since 2011, U.S. natural gas liquids (NGL) production has more than tripled, while domestic demand has grown only modestly. Consequently, the only way NGL markets could balance was a dramatic increase in exports. Today, over 70% of U.S. propane production is exported, with the majority going to overseas markets, while other NGLs see varying export levels: 40% for butanes, 25% for natural gasoline, and 18% for ethane. Although U.S. NGL production growth is slowing, we still project an increase of 1.5 MMb/d over the next decade and a half, with 85% of that growth coming from the Permian Basin. As U.S. ethane and LPG production continues to rise, nearly all the export growth is expected to head to the Asia/Pacific region, with a significant portion going to one country: China. But is this outlook for U.S. NGLs realistic? And do we have adequate infrastructure — ranging from gathering systems to processing plants and fractionators, and from export terminals to the right kind of ships — to handle all of these volumes? In one of his hit tunes, Toby Keith clearly identified the problem for us: “Where You Gonna Go? And What Ya Gonna Do When You Get There?” These are key NGL market themes that we'll be exploring at our upcoming NACON conference on October 24 at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Houston and that we’ll introduce in today’s RBN blog.
Monday, 9/02/2024
Over the past decade, the only significant growth market for U.S. crude oil and NGLs has been exports, with over 90% departing from the Gulf Coast. Exports via Gulf of Mexico ports have surged from about 1 MMb/d in 2016 to over 6 MMb/d last year. Great news for PADD 3 export facilities, right? Well, it’s not that simple. The distribution of barrels has been wildly uneven, resulting in significant winners, forlorn losers, and everything in between. And export volumes are still ramping up, as is the competition among marine terminals for crude and NGL export market share, with far-reaching consequences for producers, midstreamers and exporters. This is one of the core themes at our upcoming NACON conference, which is all about PADD 3 North American Crude Oil & NGLs and scheduled for October 24 at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Houston. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll delve into the highly competitive liquids export landscape, consider some of the important factors driving flows one way or the other, and — fair warning — slip in some subliminal advertising for the NACON event.
Tuesday, 8/06/2024
Over the past decade, the only significant growth market for U.S. crude oil and NGLs has been exports, with over 90% departing from the Gulf Coast. Exports via Gulf of Mexico ports have surged from about 1 MMb/d in 2016 to over 6 MMb/d last year. Great news for PADD 3 export facilities, right? Well, it’s not that simple. The distribution of barrels has been wildly uneven, resulting in significant winners, forlorn losers, and everything in between. And export volumes are still ramping up, as is the competition among marine terminals for crude and NGL export market share, with far-reaching consequences for producers, midstreamers and exporters. This is one of the core themes at our upcoming NACON conference, which is all about PADD 3 North American Crude Oil & NGLs and scheduled for October 24 at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Houston. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll delve into the highly competitive liquids export landscape, consider some of the important factors driving flows one way or the other, and — fair warning — slip in some subliminal advertising for the NACON event.
Wednesday, 7/31/2024
Data center power demand is soaring as AI — artificial intelligence — rapidly expands across all sorts of applications. That statement is certainly the top buzz factor in today’s energy markets. These facilities need 24x7, super-reliable power, and there’s only one power generation fuel that has any hope of keeping up with the demand surge: natural gas. While most data center developers would prefer green energy to cover their power requirements, the intermittent nature of wind and solar means that for many facilities, it can't happen, at least for the short-to-medium term hyped-up market we are seeing right now. But how much incremental power are we talking about? And how much natural gas will be needed? That’s what we’ll explore in today’s RBN blog.
Wednesday, 6/19/2024
There’s never been any reason to question the drivers for energy infrastructure development — until now. Historically, the drivers were almost always “supply-push.” The Shale Revolution brought on increasing production volumes that needed to be moved to market, and midstreamers — backed by producer commitments — responded with the infrastructure to make it happen. But now things seem to be different. U.S. energy infrastructure investment is soaring across crude oil, natural gas and NGL markets and, as in previous buildouts, midstreamers are bringing on new processing plants, pipelines, fractionators, storage facilities, export terminals and everything in between. We count nearly 70 projects in the works. But crude production has been flat as a pancake, natural gas is down, and lately NGLs are up — but as you might expect, only in one basin: the Permian. So what is driving all the infrastructure development this time around? In today’s RBN blog, we’ll explore why that question will be front-and-center at our upcoming School of Energy: Catch a Wave. Fair warning, this blog includes an unabashed advertorial for our 2024 conference coming up on June 26-27 in Houston.
Monday, 5/27/2024
There’s never been any reason to question the drivers for energy infrastructure development — until now. Historically, the drivers were almost always “supply-push.” The Shale Revolution brought on increasing production volumes that needed to be moved to market, and midstreamers — backed by producer commitments — responded with the infrastructure to make it happen. But now things seem to be different. U.S. energy infrastructure investment is soaring across crude oil, natural gas and NGL markets and, as in previous buildouts, midstreamers are bringing on new processing plants, pipelines, fractionators, storage facilities, export terminals and everything in between. We count nearly 70 projects in the works. But crude production has been flat as a pancake, natural gas is down, and lately NGLs are up — but as you might expect, only in one basin: the Permian. So what is driving all the infrastructure development this time around? In today’s RBN blog, we’ll explore why that question will be front-and-center at our upcoming School of Energy: Catch a Wave. Fair warning, this blog includes an unabashed advertorial for our 2024 conference coming up on June 26-27 in Houston.
Tuesday, 5/21/2024
There’s never been any reason to question the drivers for energy infrastructure development — until now. Historically, the drivers were almost always “supply-push.” The Shale Revolution brought on increasing production volumes that needed to be moved to market, and midstreamers — backed by producer commitments — responded with the infrastructure to make it happen. But now things seem to be different. U.S. energy infrastructure investment is soaring across crude oil, natural gas and NGL markets and, as in previous buildouts, midstreamers are bringing on new processing plants, pipelines, fractionators, storage facilities, export terminals and everything in between. We count nearly 70 projects in the works. But crude production has been flat as a pancake, natural gas is down, and lately NGLs are up — but as you might expect, only in one basin: the Permian. So what is driving all the infrastructure development this time around? In today’s RBN blog, we’ll explore why that question will be front-and-center at our upcoming School of Energy: Catch a Wave. Fair warning, this blog includes an unabashed advertorial for our 2024 conference coming up on June 26-27 in Houston.
Tuesday, 4/09/2024
Growth for growth’s sake. In the early years of the Shale Revolution, that’s what it was all about. Backed by billions of dollars in Wall Street borrowings, E&Ps plowed vast piles of cash into increasing production. It was the era of “Drill baby drill!” And we all know what happened next. Rabid production growth contributed to oversupply and crude oil prices crashed. But resilient E&Ps clawed their way back by adopting what we now know as capital discipline, initially in fits and starts. Then, after the COVID price meltdown, they went all-in, elevating free cash flow generation to Job #1 and returning a significant portion of cash flow to shareholders. It worked! Financial markets started to think of E&Ps more as yield vehicles than growth plays. But it is in the DNA of oil and gas producers to grow. And now that U.S. crude prices are above $85/bbl, could we see a backslide toward organic growth — a 2024 rendition of “Drill baby drill”? In today’s RBN blog, we’ll explore the historical context of E&Ps’ transition to capital discipline and what it tells us about what’s coming next.
Friday, 12/29/2023
Think energy markets are getting back to normal? After all, prices have been relatively stable, production is growing at a healthy rate, and infrastructure bottlenecks are front and center again. Just like the good ol’ days, right? Absolutely not. It’s a whole new energy world out there, with unexpected twists and turns around every corner — everything from regional hostilities, renewables subsidies, disruptions at shipping pinch points, pipeline capacity shortfalls and all sorts of other quirky variables. There’s just no way to predict what is going to happen next, right? Nah. All we need to do is stick our collective RBN necks out one more time, peer into our crystal ball, and see what 2024 has in store for us.
Thursday, 12/28/2023
A year ago, as New Year’s Day approached, we were looking ahead into very uncertain market conditions, having lived through a pandemic, crazy weather events, collapsing and then soaring prices, and Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine. Our job was once again to peer into the RBN crystal ball to see what the upcoming year had in store for energy markets. We’ll do that again in our next blog. But another part of that tradition is to look back to see how we did with our forecasts for the previous year. That’s right! We actually check our work. And that’s exactly what we’ll do today: review our prognostications for 2023.
Wednesday, 12/27/2023
Crude oil, natural gas and NGL production roared back in 2023. All three energy commodity groups hit record volumes, which means one thing: more infrastructure is needed. That means gathering systems, pipelines, processing plants, refinery units, fractionators, storage facilities and, above all, export dock capacity. That’s because most of the incremental production is headed overseas — U.S. energy exports are on the rise! If 2023’s dominant story line was production growth, exports and (especially) the need for new infrastructure, you can bet our blogs on those topics garnered more than their share of interest from RBN’s subscribers. Today we dive into our Top 10 blogs to uncover the hottest topics in 2023 energy markets.
Monday, 11/27/2023
It’s the 10-year anniversary of a polar vortex winter that’s seared into the memories of every propaner who lived through it. Shortages. High prices. Government inquiries. Sure, there were difficulties during that winter in the markets for natural gas and fuel oil too, but it was particularly bad for propane. It seemed like a perfect storm hit the propane market right where it hurt the most — in the heart of propane country: the Upper Midwest and the Northeast. A lot has changed since then, but it’s important to look back at what went wrong, what’s been done to make a repeat of that chaotic winter far less likely, and what those events still mean for the propane market today.
Thursday, 11/23/2023
There’s a lot of nitrogen out there — it’s the seventh-most common element in the universe and the Earth’s atmosphere is 78% nitrogen (and only 21% oxygen). And there’s certainly nothing new about nitrogen in the production, processing and delivery of natural gas. That’s because all natural gas contains at least a little nitrogen. But lately, the nitrogen content in some U.S. natural gas has become a real headache, and it’s getting worse. There are two things going on. First, a few counties in the Permian’s Midland Basin produce gas with unusually high nitrogen content, and those same counties have been the Midland’s fastest-growing production area the past few years. Second, there’s the LNG angle. LNG is by far the fastest-growing demand sector for U.S. gas. LNG terminals here in the U.S. and buyers of U.S. LNG don’t like nitrogen one little bit. As an inert gas (meaning it does not burn), nitrogen lowers the heating value of the LNG and takes up room (lowers the effective capacity) in the terminal’s liquefaction train. Bottom line, nitrogen generally mucks up the process of liquefying, transporting and consuming LNG, which means that nitrogen is a considerably more problematic issue for LNG terminals than for most domestic gas consumers. So as the LNG sector increases as a fraction of total U.S. demand, the nitrogen issue really comes to the fore. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll explore why high nitrogen content in gas is happening now, why it matters and how bad it could get.
Wednesday, 11/08/2023
Well, thanks to you all, we reached another important milestone this week: 40,000 subscribers to RBN’s daily blog. We are quite proud of the achievement. That’s a lot of folks taking time out of their busy day to read a couple thousand words about what’s happening with oil, gas, NGLs and renewables — all in the context of a rock & roll song. We couldn’t have done it without you. Today, after posting a total of about 3,000 blogs over nearly 12 years, we pull back the curtain on the RBN blogosphere and discuss how and why it all happens — and how you help shape what we blog about.
