SPECIAL REPORT | September 23, 2016

Texas Traffic Set to Rise - Light Sweet Skirmish at the Texas Coast to follow Judicial Upheaval

Public protests and associated legal actions, including a temporary injunction stopping construction around a water crossing in North Dakota, has put the spotlight on the 570 kb/d Dakota Access ( DAPL ) and Energy Transfer Crude Oil ( ETCO ) Bakken pipeline system. Despite the recent setback, we maintain that the DAPL / ETCO system will become operational in early 2017 and have a significant impact on light crude oil flows at the US Gulf Coast ( USGC ). In this Special Report, we explain why w.....


NG MARKET MONITOR | June 06, 2016

June 6, 2016

Compared to last Monday we have seen a bullish shift in most supply and demand drivers.


MARKET INSIGHT | May 10, 2016

Seasonal Spreads On The Move

Since last October, weather has been the primary driver behind all significant price moves at the front of the curve. However, with minimal weather driven volatility in May, fundamental supply and demand factors will be the primary drivers for any deviation from the trend. As the market works its way through the front spreads and the salt dome inventory constraints, V/F should tighten inline with the declining year-on-year inventory surplus levels.


SPECIAL REPORT | March 28, 2016

Summer 2016 - An Overview Of Balances

The winter of 2015-2016 verified as the warmest on record, which led to record low weather driven demand levels. Extremely weak demand in turn pushed prices towards their historical lows. Figure 1 shows the cumulative deviation of winter weather from the 30-yr normal expressed in HDDs and Figure 2 plots the corresponding pattern for winter Henry Hub prices calculated as the average of actual cash prices and implied future prices by the NYMEX strip. The close relationship between warmer than no.....


DATA INSIGHT | February 23, 2016

Crude Loadings - Tracking Exports and Supply in Key Regions

In this Data Insight we introduce our monthly Crude Loadings report. Loading programs for some of the world’s key producing regions provide valuable insights to crude movements as well as pricing dynamics, and may serve as a bellwether to supply in these regions. In its current form, the Crude Loadings report covers over 60 distinct streams of crude across the North Sea, Africa, Middle East and FSU . We provide some details around the timeline of the loading schedules as well as definitions and.....


DATA INSIGHT | December 11, 2015

Flat price heading to the $20's?

Possible implications of oil inventories and Brent spreads on crude flat price Consensus and bearish sentiment around crude prices have firmed after the OPEC meeting. Barring any exogenous shocks to the system, further pressure on prices is likely during the coming months and lower crude outright prices may be necessary to bring balance to the market more quickly as US production continues to prove resilient and Iran is likely to put an additional 500-800 kb/d in 2016, with some barrels pot.....


DATA INSIGHT | October 14, 2015

Winter is coming - don't let the balancing item ruin it!

For our monthly supply and demand balances we use data published in the EIA’s Natural Gas Monthly ( NGM ). The latest update published on September 30 coincided with the release of the Natural Gas Annual ( NGA ) 2014 which included significant revisions to 2013 and 2014 data in addition to the usual changes to 2015 monthly estimates. In this Data Insight, we provide a recap of summer balances, go over revisions to the EIA data and discuss their impact on our forward looking balances for the up.....


SPECIAL REPORT | August 31, 2015

Eagle Ford Oil Production - And a Better Way to Model Associated Gas Output

Shale is a very robust resource and no play captures that characteristic better than the Eagle Ford. Oil wells in Eagle Ford produce 40% of natural gas in the play and production proved more resilient than the analyst community expected at the end of last year. Moreover, the supply channel is still stuffed: a comparison between the number of drilled and/or completed wells and the number of connected wells shows that the current level of Eagle Ford oil output can be maintained for at least anothe.....


SPECIAL REPORT | July 09, 2015

Great Expectations - Pricing in Future Expectations of Supply and Demand

The natural gas market seems to be struggling to price in the effects of tightening balances, while still holding on to expectations for looser balances later in the season. The demand and weather relationship outlined in our March paper was verified so far and we discuss its implications through the injection season. July marks the seventh month disappointing production was attributed to “temporary” factors (i.e. maintenance and shut-ins). Production is drastically below original expectat.....


SPECIAL REPORT | June 02, 2015

Coal Retirements - Incremental Gas and Forced Coal Burns

Cooling loads are finally picking up and the impact of coal retirements on year-on-year gas balances is in the spotlight. In this Special Report, we quantify the incremental gas volume that will be necessary to compensate for “lost” power from coal plants that were decommissioned since July 2014. Using our proprietary methodology focusing on unit-level generation, based on historical trends, 0.75 bcf/d of incremental gas will be needed during the peak summer months to replace the output of the.....