There’s a lot to like about the Uinta Basin’s waxy crude, but ramping up its production and use in refinery feedstock slates will require multimillion-dollar investments in rail terminals, special rail cars, heated storage, refinery equipment and other midstream and downstream infrastructure. A natural concern for E&Ps, midstreamers, and refiners i…

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 stat…

Hydrogen has a well-established, if limited, role in the modern economy. It has been used in refining and ammonia production for decades, but its potential has long been touted in various areas, including decarbonizing hard-to-abate industrial processes such as steelmaking, as well as in larger roles in heavy-duty transportation and energy storage.…

The Permian’s Midland and Delaware basins have seen their share of midstream success stories the past few years — many of them privately backed efforts to gain a foothold and then expand into the big time. Navitas Midstream Partners (later sold to Enterprise Products Partners) comes to mind; so do Oryx Midstream and Brazos Midstream. Now comes Vaqu…

Serious concerns about higher costs and lower demand have left the E&P sector in a delicate position since the implementation of new U.S. tariffs, as evidenced by the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank’s recent survey of producers, who appear especially vulnerable after massive acquisition spending in 2024 to deepen and high-grade their portfolios. In tod…

Much like a cowboy venturing into uncharted territory, E&Ps are roaming Northeast Texas and the far-western sections of the Haynesville Shale in search of more natural gas. It’s a challenging adventure, and while there’s a lot of hope and hype, the recent history of developments outside the Haynesville’s main producing areas shows that success is f…

The Trump administration’s approach to economic policy — including tariff threats to longtime allies backed by sometimes shifting policy goals — might be a sound tactical move in the long run by keeping negotiators on edge and extracting better deals. But that approach has also heightened the sense of uncertainty about where things are headed, affe…

Several large, publicly held midstream companies play critical roles in transporting crude oil, natural gas and NGLs from the Permian Basin to markets along the Gulf Coast, and all of them are investing hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars to expand their Permian-to-Gulf infrastructure. But there’s a privately held outlier among them — …

In just a few years, the Uinta Basin has morphed from a quirky, waxy-crude curiosity to a burgeoning shale play with production north of 170 Mb/d and initial production (IP) rates that compare favorably with the best wells in the Permian. Still, there are a host of logistical challenges associated with transporting waxy crude out of the basin and q…

The U.S. propane market may appear seamless at times, but a lot is happening just below the surface to determine consumer pricing. Key factors include the high seasonality of demand, supply contracts that must account for the seasonality of product delivery and the price, and the cost of transportation from terminals to bulk plants to end users. In…

Woodside Energy’s final investment decision (FID) on the $17.5 billion Louisiana LNG terminal was a stunner. For one thing, only 1 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa) of the project’s 16.5 MMtpa (2.2 Bcf/d) of capacity is under contract — U.S. LNG export projects typically have commitments for two-thirds or more of their output before pulling the…

The tide is shifting in the energy sector back toward hydrocarbons as renewables face new, big hurdles. The latest tangible sign of this shift is BP’s decision to refocus on traditional oil and gas and deemphasize renewables, which follows ExxonMobil’s and Shell’s restructuring of strategies in the same direction. The likelihood that hydrocarbon de…

The Trump administration is trying to breathe new life into the long-dormant Alaska LNG project, talking up its strengths and encouraging potential Asian customers and investors to consider it. But the project, a multibillion-dollar plan to pipe natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope to Anchorage and Cook Inlet for liquefaction and export, faces hug…

The U.S. government recently released the final rules for the Section 301 fees proposed earlier this year, intended to address the dominance of China’s shipbuilding industry. According to the new rules, exports on Chinese-owned, -operated or -built vessels are mostly excluded — great news for U.S. energy producers and exporters, especially in the N…

Rising demand for electricity to serve data centers, manufacturing and other power-consuming sectors of the economy is spurring the development of scores of gas-fired plants — up to 100 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity by 2040. How much power those new plants will actually generate — and, with that, how much natural gas they will require — remain ope…

Over the past 15 years, the U.S.’s crude oil supply/demand balance has been transformed by the Shale Revolution. Increasing production unlocked through horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing have pushed up the nation’s overall supply without an equal change in refining capacity, resulting in significant changes in regional balances. In today’…

Tech giants such as Google, Amazon and Meta have long sought to meet their data-center power needs while at least limiting their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. But while many developers and utilities have turned to natural gas to power data centers because of its ability to provide reliable 24/7 power, renewable generation continues to play a role…

Taking a nine- or 10-figure energy infrastructure project from concept to fruition is never easy. Siting dilemmas, permitting woes, commitment-wary customers, financing snags, legal challenges — there are seemingly endless hurdles. And that’s in normal times. Add in market volatility and fast-changing governmental policies and a developer’s job bec…

The boundaries of what we typically think of as the Haynesville Shale in Northeast Texas and Northwest Louisiana are expanding. E&Ps are increasingly moving out from the core producing acreage and exploring new frontiers, including the far western part of the dry-gas shale play. Wrangling gas from this prospect is challenging, with deeper, high-pre…

The record $120 billion upstream M&A spending spree in 2024 focused on the consolidation of Permian Basin positions by the major U.S. publicly traded oil and gas companies. With crude oil prices stagnant in the $70-$80/bbl range, producers were driven to boost Tier 1 acreage and capture operational synergies to fund the generous shareholder returns…

In an industry such as oil and gas that is beset with more uncertainty than usual of late due to geopolitical upsets, bubbling trade wars and a recent plunge in crude oil prices, being a larger company with the resources to survive the turbulent times — and thrive when the sailing is smoother — is more important than ever. For Western Canada’s ener…

The North American energy landscape has undergone significant shifts in production, infrastructure and pricing for crude oil, natural gas and NGLs over the past few years and developments within Canada have strengthened its role in the global energy trade, creating opportunities and reshaping supply chains. Yet, the market is constantly changing an…

What happens when almost everybody is on the same side of a trade and the fundamentals flip? Yup, max pain. Everyone races for the exits at the same time, sending the market into speculative liquidation mode and causing cascading losses. It can get frantic and ugly — tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, and no one’s sure how b…

The West Coast energy market, PADD 5, is undergoing a profound transformation. Consumption of petroleum-based refined products is declining due to a host of factors including increased renewable diesel (RD) usage, slowing population growth, electric vehicle (EV) penetration and fuel efficiency improvements, just to name a few, but that’s only half …

Natural gasoline is the most expensive natural gas liquid (NGL), accounting for more than 25% of the price-weighted NGL barrel (versus 10%-12% of the barrel by volume). It is also notoriously difficult to track, with similar products having different names and unclear demand segments. In fact, the difficulty tracking portions of demand, combined wi…

It’s the most expensive NGL, accounting for more than 25% of the value of a weighted average barrel. It is the only NGL that does not require storage or transportation under pressure. And it’s the most misunderstood of the NGLs, going by different names depending on the market and geography, with a chameleon-like characteristic that allows it to be…

As the clock approached midnight on December 31, E&P managements and shareholders likely clinked champagne flutes to celebrate a remarkable four years of prosperity for an industry that had been nearly shattered by two decades of periodic financial crisis. Soaring post-pandemic commodity prices and gold-plated balance sheets provided generous cash …

Starting on April 10, China will enact an 84% reciprocal tariff on imports of U.S. goods. This increase was in response to the 104% tariff that the U.S. placed on imports of Chinese goods, which was subsequently raised to 125% by President Trump on April 9. China is likely to retaliate further. Unlike China’s February retaliatory tariffs of 10%-15%…

The rapid growth in U.S. natural gas production and LNG exports over the past 10 years was just the beginning. Between now and 2035, gas production in the Permian, Eagle Ford, Haynesville and other plays will continue rising, the Gulf Coast’s LNG export capacity will double and many new pipelines will be built. New gas-fired power plants will be ad…

Growing power demand for data centers has been one of the biggest stories in energy markets over the past year, with natural gas-fired power plants emerging as the primary choice for developers seeking to provide the 24/7 power these massive, energy-intensive sites require. That has led many energy firms to unveil plans to sell power directly to da…

The North American energy landscape has undergone significant shifts in production, infrastructure and pricing for crude oil, natural gas and NGLs over the past few years and developments within Canada have strengthened its role in the global energy trade, creating opportunities and reshaping supply chains. Yet, the market is constantly changing an…

President Trump’s inauguration has pushed a flurry of policy changes, including exhortations to the E&P industry to boost U.S. oil and gas output dramatically. However, in their year-end earnings calls, the major domestic producers struck a more cautious and calmer tone, sticking to the same themes they adopted to recover financial stability and wi…

After a record run of negative pricing last spring and summer, the Permian Basin collectively cheered as WhiteWater’s Matterhorn Express pipeline began flowing last October, bringing much-needed takeaway capacity to the area. Cash prices at the Waha Hub rebounded and the basin had a relatively uneventful winter, but prices began dropping in early M…

As crude oil pipelines from the Permian to the Gulf Coast edge closer to full utilization, it’s becoming a challenge for producers and shippers alike. Amid this capacity crunch, converting Enterprise’s Midland to ECHO 2 (M2E-2) pipeline back to crude oil service can’t come quickly enough. In today’s RBN blog — the latest in our series on Permian cr…

Over the next couple of years, six new pipelines and expansion projects will bring 11.8 Bcf/d of incremental natural gas supplies to the Texas/Louisiana Gulf Coast. During the same period, more than 8 Bcf/d of new LNG export capacity will move that gas to international markets. The impact of this onslaught of gas flows will be anything but orderly.…

Two factors — public concern about soaring utility bills and President Trump’s strong opposition to offshore wind — are forcing New England to rethink its once-ambitious plans for a renewables-heavy electric grid and reassess how to meet its power-generation needs in the late 2020s and early 2030s. One possibility would be to expand the region’s ac…

Most conversations and analyses around hydrocarbon prices tend to focus on crude oil, if for no other reason than the direct exposure we experience when filling up at the pump. After the commodity price crash in early 2020, which threatened the financial stability of U.S. E&Ps, a subsequent surge in oil prices drove a remarkable recovery, winning b…

It might seem crazy to talk about expanding crude oil and diluent pipeline systems between Canada and the U.S. amid what could escalate into an all-out trade war between the two nations. However, Enbridge, one of the largest pipeline operators in the world, is doing just that — actively planning and investing in pipeline expansions for its Mainline…

Huge fees may be coming to ships built in China each time they arrive at a U.S. port. During a hearing in Washington on Monday, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) heard comments on its January 2025 study that laid out China’s strategy to achieve dominance in the global maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sectors — a strategy that …

More than 9 billion gallons of propane were delivered to U.S. consumer markets in 2024, primarily for residential heating and cooking. Demand is highly seasonal, which brings a unique set of challenges for buyers, especially on the wholesale side of the market, but production tends to be steadier over the course of the year. In today’s RBN blog, we…

A half dozen large midstream companies provide the full gamut of “wellhead-to-water” services for Permian-sourced natural gas and/or NGLs, and a couple of those offer the same for crude oil as well. For Enbridge and Plains All American, the clear focus has been on crude — pipelines, storage and marine terminals — though Enbridge has been rapidly ex…

Mexico’s LNG sector has seen notable advancements in the past year, including new export project announcements and strategic investments. But many of the proposed LNG projects require extensive pipeline buildouts — no easy task south of the border and perhaps the biggest impediment most of the export projects face. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look a…

Western Canada’s natural gas market never really seems to catch a break. Prices this winter have remained well below those across much of the rest of North America thanks to an all-too-common combination of insufficient pipeline export capacity from the region, bloated gas storage and robust supply growth. Even with forward price prospects for much…

The Trump administration announced on February 26 that it is ending Chevron’s permit to operate in oil-rich Venezuela, which will halt U.S. imports of Venezuelan crude by early April. These changes, combined with other recent developments, are likely to significantly impact complex U.S. Gulf Coast refiners relying on heavy crude. In today’s RBN blo…

Crude-oil-focused drilling and completion in the Permian Basin is generating fast-increasing volumes of associated gas — and creating opportunities for midstream companies that provide “wellhead-to-water” services for natural gas and NGLs. ONEOK has become a much bigger player in this space via several transformational acquisitions and MPLX has bee…

The Rocky Mountain region (PADD 4), with a population that is both smaller and more spread out than other parts of the Lower 48, consumes only around 650 Mb/d of refined products — just one-fourth the volume of the next-smallest PADD. That limits the need for refinery capacity, which matches the region’s average annual consumption and is only outst…

President Trump’s flurry of executive orders upon returning to office included one titled “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential,” which aims to see the realization of the long-dormant Alaska LNG project, a multibillion-dollar plan to bring natural gas several hundred miles from Alaska’s North Slope to Anchorage and Cook Inlet for ev…

As the global crude oil market continuously evolves, so do the tools that traders, refiners and producers rely on to navigate its complexities. Among these tools, futures contracts play a pivotal role, allowing market participants to manage risk and ensure liquidity. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll explore what sets apart two major futures contracts for…

New England is determined to shift toward a greener electric grid, but the region’s plan to slash its current reliance on natural gas (and backup fuel oil — and sometimes coal) by ramping up offshore wind and solar (and backup batteries) has hit a seemingly immovable object. President Trump, a staunch opponent of offshore wind, on Day 1 of his seco…

The pace of announcements for planned data centers accelerated in 2024 and has continued to gather steam in 2025, with natural gas-fired power plants emerging as a frequent choice, along with nuclear power, to provide the around-the-clock electricity that large-scale data centers want and need. In today’s RBN blog, the first in a series, we’ll deta…