DATA INSIGHT
| August 29, 2014
Behind the Meter: Quantifying daily power burns behind a utility meter
As useful as informational postings published by natural gas pipelines are, they only provide limited visibility and fall short on two fronts. First, since intrastate pipelines are no longer required to report scheduled volumes on their systems, supply and demand dynamics in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana are opaque. Second, in regions where a large portion of electric generation capacity is controlled by utilities, pipeline flows only allow us to see total gas volumes delivered to a utility’s se.....
GLOBAL OIL RECAP AND BALANCES
| August 13, 2014
CORRECTED: Global Oil Recap and Balances: August 2014
The original posting of this file was missing the word “growth” in the first sentence. It now reads “The IEA dropped its 2014 demand growth estimate by -200 kb/d to +1.1 mb/d.” No other changes have been made. Highlights from the IEA’s August 2014 Oil Market Report ( OMR ) The IEA dropped its 2014 demand growth estimate by -200 kb/d to +1.1 mb/d. Last month’s OMR warned its audience against such a drop due to a possible downward revision of IMF’s global economic growth forecast. I.....
GLOBAL OIL RECAP AND BALANCES
| July 14, 2014
Global Oil Recap and Balances: July 2014
Highlights from the IEA’s July 2014 Oil Market Report ( OMR ) IEA’s July 2014 report released on Friday contains a warning in its opening section: “Contrary to seasonal patterns, the [Saudi] Kingdom barely hiked production in June, a sign that demand for its crude may not have significantly increased.” We are then reminded that “disappointing economic indicators recently prompted the IMF to hint that its forecast of economic growth might be trimmed.” Yet, the agency notes that “the global.....
GLOBAL OIL RECAP AND BALANCES
| June 17, 2014
Global Oil Recap and Balances: June 2014
Highlights from the IEA’s June 2014 Oil Market Report The IEA’s Oil Market Report published June 13, 2014 (a typically abridged June version) hones in on the current Iraqi crisis in which the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham ( ISIS ), an insurgent Sunni group, has gained control of much of northern Iraq. On June 10, ISIS overran Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, and with the group’s plans to attack Baghdad, the potential for the crisis to hamper Iraq’s southern oil production has incr.....
GLOBAL OIL RECAP AND BALANCES
| May 18, 2014
May 2014
Please find attached a PDF file with commentary and official oil supply and demand projections from the IEA , OPEC , and the US DOE . Note that the columns in the report do not line up for the U.S. DOE table as DOE’s release includes 2015, while the outlooks published by the IEA and OPEC extend through 2014.
SPECIAL REPORT
| May 05, 2014
March made April look bad - Outlining a bearish summer scenario for natural gas
The withdrawal season ended with natural gas inventories at their lowest levels in over a decade and storage builds so far are not keeping up with previous expectations. Infrastructure delays and problems — including an explosion in the largest processing plant in the Rockies — are expected to limit year-on-year supply growth during the injection season. Demand is surging thanks to the U.S. industrial renaissance and growing market share of natural gas in the power sector. Most indicators — incl.....
MARKET INSIGHT
| April 16, 2014
Splitter naphtha as an indirect LPG competitor
Heating demand for propane contributes to seasonality; incremental US naphtha supplies could support ethylene margins in Asia Pacific. In addition to record liquefied petroleum gas ( LPG ) exports, if recently-announced condensate splitters go ahead as planned, the US will also have excess light naphtha to export. Both of these products compete as feedstock for petrochemical production. But because of propane’s greater seasonality and its use for on-purpose propylene (propane dehydrogenation .....
GLOBAL OIL RECAP AND BALANCES
| April 11, 2014
April 2014
Please find attached a PDF file with commentary and official oil supply and demand projections from the IEA , OPEC , and the US DOE . Note that the columns in the report do not line up for the U.S. DOE table as DOE’s release includes 2015, while the outlooks published by the IEA and OPEC extend through 2014.
SPECIAL REPORT
| April 07, 2014
Can crude-by-rail survive? It is no longer just about tank cars
Oil producers and rail carriers are facing great obstacles in their crude-by-rail businesses. A lot of attention has been paid to tank car design recently, but the challenges revolve around the product as much as its container. Bakken crude in its current form makes it a more dangerous product to transport than it is labeled to be. The Lac-Mégantic accident was a wakeup call for the industry and oil producers are taking measures to make Bakken crude safer to transport. In.....
GLOBAL OIL RECAP AND BALANCES
| March 14, 2014
March 2014
According to the IEA’s Oil Market Report published earlier today, despite rising international tensions, pressure on oil markets seems set to ease. Focusing on the recent events in Ukraine, the Agency first highlights the limited role Ukraine plays in oil transit. Only 10% of the 3.0 mb/d crude Russia exports to Europe travels through Ukraine via the southern spur of the Druzhba pipeline. That route exposes three countries to a supply risk: Hungary, the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic. Mo.....