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RBN Radio with your hosts Roc, Boogs, Nutty, and Ms Sophisticated
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Rambunctious Bombastic Newscast! (RBN: The voicenotes)


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Rambunctious Bombastic Newscast! (RBN: The voicenotes)
Ruben Whitter
Unscripted, unfiltered, raw, honest, true. Welcome to Rambunctious Bodacious Newscast. RBN: The Voicenotes. Tune in weekly for an unscripted, unfiltered, raw, honest, true behind the scenes perspectives.
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RBN Energy Blogcast


Rapidly rising prices for goods and services have plagued the economy since the onset of the pandemic — and led the Federal Reserve to ratchet up interest rates to help cool things off. Despite strong signs that overall inflation is receding, the negative impacts are far from over. Like every other sector, the U.S. E&P industry faced soaring costs …
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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I Want to Take You Higher - How Much Will the Midland-to-Houston WTI Price Spread Widen as Oil Flows Shift?
13:23
Over the past three-plus years, Corpus Christi has dominated the U.S. crude oil export market, largely because of the availability of straight-shot pipeline access from the Permian to two Corpus-area terminals at Ingleside — Enbridge Ingleside Energy Center (EIEC) and South Texas Gateway (STG) — that can partially load the huge 2-MMbbl VLCCs (Very …
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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Burn On - Spurred by Interest From Japan and South Korea, Clean Ammonia Projects Proliferate
11:42
Clean ammonia, which is produced by reacting clean hydrogen with nitrogen and capturing and sequestering the resulting carbon dioxide (CO2), is gaining momentum. In just the past few months, several more new clean ammonia production projects have been proposed along the U.S. Gulf Coast, many of them made possible by commitments from Japanese and So…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


The U.S.’s effort to prioritize low-carbon energy entails some bumps and bruises along the way, an indication that the energy industry’s trilemma of availability, reliability and affordability can conflict with today’s economic realities and environmental priorities, even in a state like California with abundant financial and clean-energy resources…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


Is the glass half-full or half-empty? The answer to that age-old question usually indicates whether a particular situation is a cause for optimism or pessimism. That question is particularly appropriate when trying to place in perspective the cyclical movement of the earnings and cash flows of U.S. exploration and production (E&P) companies, includ…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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Need You Now - New Developments in Bakken Crude Oil Production and Dakota Access Pipeline Drama
11:23
A draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) tied to a key water crossing along the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) has finally been completed and made public, thereby ending another chapter in the long-running drama about the ultimate fate of DAPL, which is by far the largest crude oil pipeline out of the Bakken. While the DEIS doesn’t finish the s…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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When the Wind Blows - Potential Project Cancellations Highlight Difficulties for Offshore Wind
13:52
It’s no secret that the past several months have been challenging for the wind power industry, especially when it comes to offshore projects. Major developers have sought to renegotiate power-purchase agreements (PPAs) signed years ago, delayed work on some projects, and walked away from others, despite severe financial repercussions in some cases.…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


The CME/NYMEX Henry Hub prompt natural gas futures prices have been relatively rangebound this injection season and have averaged around $2.60/MMBtu since June — a third or less of where prices stood during the same period last year, in the $7-$9/MMBtu range, and at or below most natural gas producers’ breakeven costs. Yet, this is a much rosier sc…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


The M&A boom in the Permian and Eagle Ford continues unabated. Lately, a multitude of E&Ps have built scale and increased profitability by acquiring other producers that control acreage and produce crude oil, natural gas and NGLs themselves. But it’s also possible for an E&P to boost its holdings by acquiring incremental working interests in its op…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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Replace Me - Diversified E&P Reserve Growth Driven by Acquisitions After Tepid Organic Additions
15:02
While the weather-related headlines might still scream “summer” in some places — from stifling heat to powerful hurricanes to downpour-induced mud bogs at Burning Man in the Nevada desert — we’ve actually turned the corner into meteorological fall. Oil and gas prices have moved up from their Q2 2023 lows and supply issues, particularly for oil, are…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


The Permian is in the midst of an NGL infrastructure boom as midstream companies are investing to keep up with the strong production growth projected over the next several years — but until these new projects are up and running, NGL pipeline capacity to the Gulf Coast is only going to get tighter. In today’s RBN blog, we look at five pipeline proje…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


After being relegated to the back burner during the shale boom, the natural gas storage market is showing signs of a comeback. Market participants are clamoring for storage solutions, storage values are rising, and storage deals and expansions are bubbling up. However, that won’t necessarily lead to a widespread build-out of new storage capacity li…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


What a difference a year makes! The summer of 2022 was a golden age for U.S. E&Ps that embraced a dramatic shift in their business model from prioritizing growth to a focus on maximizing cash flows and emphasizing shareholder returns. Oil prices over $90/bbl and gas prices hovering about $7/MMBtu filled their coffers and funded lavish increases in …
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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Please Don’t Go - What About Using Some Permian Gas Locally to Make Gasoline, SAF and Power?
11:25
Permian producers are churning out ever-increasing volumes of associated gas, all of which needs to find a home. New or expanded takeaway pipelines to Gulf Coast markets are an obvious option — and a few projects are in the works — but locking in capacity requires long-term commitments that many producers are loathe to make. As a result, the balanc…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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The Contenders, Part 4 - Unveiling the Full List of Survivors of the DOE's Hydrogen Hub Cutdown
13:43
Considerable time and effort has been spent tracking the federal government’s plan to spend billions of dollars to create a number of regional hydrogen hubs. News about the Department of Energy’s (DOE) hub-selection process has been hard to come by, especially since the potential applicants weren’t publicly disclosed at the time of the agency’s inf…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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Carefree Highway - Canadian Crude 'Re-Exports' from the USGC Surge on Pipeline Access, Overseas Demand
13:47
For many years now, the U.S. has been buying — and piping or railing in — virtually all of the crude oil Canada has been exporting, in part because Canadian producers have only very limited access to coastal ports. More recently, greater pipeline access from the Alberta oil sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast (USGC) has created an attractive pathway — a “…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


The level of activity at crude oil export terminals from Corpus Christi to the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) is nothing short of extraordinary — a record 4.8 MMb/d was loaded the week ended August 25, according to RBN’s Crude Voyager report, and Houston-area terminals loaded an all-time high of 1.4 MMb/d. But there’s a lot more to the crude ex…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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O Ye'll Take the High Road and I'll Take the Low Road, Encore Edition - Exploring Two Potential Paths for Natural Gas Markets
15:25
In the last 12 months, U.S. natural gas prices have touched highs not seen since the start of the Shale Revolution as well as depths previously plumbed only briefly during downturns in 2012, 2016 and 2020. Where will prices go next? Well, if we knew that, we wouldn’t be writing blogs. As we’ve seen in the past couple of years, there’s just too much…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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Baby the RINs Must Fall, Part 3 - Examining the Odds and Timing of a Potential RINs Price Crash
11:33
U.S. production of hydrogenated renewable diesel (RD), which is made from soybean oil, animal fats and used cooking oil, is growing faster than expected. That may sound like good news for the renewable fuels industry, but it comes with the fear that the rapid growth might push RD production levels well past the mandates set by the Renewable Fuel St…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


The global push to slash methane emissions from natural gas-related operations — from production wells to end-users — and certify gas as being “responsibly sourced” has been accelerating and broadening. It now seems possible that within the next two or three years the majority of gas produced in the U.S. will be certified as responsibly sourced gas…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


It took an “Act of Congress” and a decision from the highest court in the land — handed down by the Chief Justice no less — but it’s looking more and more like Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) will be completed as early as by the end of this year, opening up 2 Bcf/d of new takeaway capacity for the increasingly pipeline-constrained Appalachian gas su…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


It’s only natural that deals like Chevron’s $7.6 billion acquisition of PDC Energy and ExxonMobil’s $4.9 billion purchase of Denbury grab the market’s attention. After all, the buyers are names known to everyone — even those who only think about hydrocarbons when they’re filling up at their local gas station. But a lot of other, lower-profile M&A a…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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O Ye'll Take the High Road and I'll Take the Low Road - Exploring Two Potential Paths for Natural Gas Markets
15:25
In the last 12 months, U.S. natural gas prices have touched highs not seen since the start of the Shale Revolution as well as depths previously plumbed only briefly during downturns in 2012, 2016 and 2020. Where will prices go next? Well, if we knew that, we wouldn’t be writing blogs. As we’ve seen in the past couple of years, there’s just too much…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


Given all the recent attention, you’d think the prospects for carbon-capture project development are fantastic. In the U.S., last year’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) featured significant increases in the 45Q tax credit for carbon sequestration, improving the economics for a wide range of carbon-capture projects. On a global level, it seems clear t…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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Replace Me, Part 2 - Metrics Favor Large Oil-Focused Shale Producers in Race to Replenish Reserves
15:00
As this brutally hot summer meanders towards Labor Day, we’re all facing rising gasoline prices as we head to the beach, to barbecues, or to the mall for back-to-school shopping. The main culprit is crude oil production cutbacks by the Russians and Saudis and the situation would likely be much more precarious were it not for strong U.S. shale outpu…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


There’s a lot going on in North American crude oil markets these days. Exports are running strong. Midland WTI is now deliverable into Brent (but only if it meets specs). Pipelines from the Permian to Corpus Christi are maxed out, pushing incremental production to Houston. The price differential between WTI at Midland and Houston is nearing zero. A…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


With the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project clearing some major legal hurdles in recent weeks and construction resuming, it’s become increasingly likely that Appalachian gas producers will soon have 2 Bcf/d of new takeaway capacity, potentially as early as late 2023. However, the degree to which the pipeline will translate into higher productio…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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I'm a Believer - U.S. Refiners Stand to Benefit from Longer Reliance on Liquid Fuels, Limited Global Capacity Additions
13:00
The world consumes about 100 MMb/d of liquid fuels, which are critically important to every segment of the global economy and to nearly every aspect of our daily lives. The size and scope of this market means it’s impacted by all kinds of short-term forces — economic ups and downs, geopolitics, domestic developments and major weather events, just t…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


Over the past four years, Energy Transfer (ET) has completed several major acquisitions, all aimed at giving the company the additional size and reach it will need to compete in an increasingly consolidated midstream sector. On Wednesday, ET announced one of its biggest purchases yet: a $7.1 billion deal to acquire Crestwood Equity Partners, which …
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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King Creole, Part 3 - Venture Global Becomes LNG Leader as Calcasieu Pass Commissioning Drags On
13:49
Venture Global reached a final investment decision (FID) on Plaquemines LNG Phase 1 in March 2022, making it the first new LNG project to get the green light post-COVID and kicking off a massive expansion period for U.S. LNG. In fact, more than 61 million tons per annum (MMtpa) of new U.S. LNG capacity has been given the go-ahead in the past 17 mon…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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Bill and Todd's Excellent Propane Adventure - Where the Market Stands as Heating Season Looms
11:07
It may be hard to believe, given the furnace-like temperatures that many of us have been dealing with the past few weeks, but the 2023-24 propane heating season is on the horizon — its official start is October 1, only seven weeks away. To quote Bill and Ted from their Excellent Adventure movie franchise, it could be argued that, for the U.S. propa…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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The Payback - Canadians 'Avenge' Keystone XL Loss With Takeover of Top U.S. Crude Export Terminals
12:32
Just a couple of years ago, TC Energy finally threw in the towel on its long-planned, long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline project, which would have substantially increased the flow of Western Canadian heavy crude to Gulf Coast refineries and export docks. It was a bitter loss. Since then, however, two other companies headquartered north of the 49th p…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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Replace Me - E&Ps Grapple With Replacing Oil and Gas Reserves in Challenging, Uncertain Times
18:13
One of the major shocks of the pandemic was walking into supermarkets to see vast stretches of bare shelves where, for decades, stacks of toilet paper, diapers, infant formula, cooking oil, and even white flour used to magically repopulate overnight. The fix turned out to be relatively easy: Get people back to work and work out the kinks in deliver…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood - Hydrogen's Colors Hog the Spotlight, but Tax Credit Puts Focus on Carbon Intensity
10:44
Clean hydrogen’s supporters often tout its growth potential, boosted in no small way by the billions of dollars in federal subsidies that will soon go toward supporting the buildout of an extensive series of regional hubs across the U.S. Clean hydrogen has its share of detractors, too, who question how much of a fixture it can become in the U.S. en…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


With so many low-carbon, carbon-neutral and carbon-negative shipping fuels being touted as the next big thing, it can be hard to determine which are for real and which are mostly hype. Some folks have been talking up LNG, biofuels, clean ammonia, fuel cells ... the list goes on and on. One way to separate the most promising prospects from the also-…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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Easier Said Than Done - Permitting for Energy Projects Proves to Be a Delicate Balancing Act
10:34
When it comes to proposals to build large-scale energy projects, whether it’s a new electric transmission line, a mining complex, or an interstate oil or gas pipeline, the permitting process can be a delicate balancing act. Nearly everyone understands that appropriate social and environmental safeguards are essential. At the same time, the permitti…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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You've Got Another Thing Comin', Part 2 - Trans Mountain Expansion Faces More Logistical Challenges
16:57
The 590-Mb/d Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) project, which is inching closer to its planned early 2024 completion, has been one of the most eagerly anticipated energy infrastructure projects in recent Canadian memory. Preliminary tolls for shipping crude on the expanded pipeline system, submitted to the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) in June, are mu…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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They Work Hard for the Money - The Latest Trends in Setting Oil and Gas Companies' Executive Pay
15:37
Unlike most of us, CEOs and other senior executives at U.S. oil and gas companies derive the lion’s share of their compensation not from salaries, but from bonus and incentive programs tied to performance targets set by their boards of directors. So it’s no surprise that the dramatic strategic shift implemented by U.S. E&Ps and integrated energy co…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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Smoke on the Water - As IMO Targets Additional Emissions Reductions, LNG Carriers Play a Role
13:02
Cargo ships move more than 80% of the world’s internationally traded goods, making them essential to the global economy, but they’ve traditionally been fueled by heavy fuel oil or marine gasoil, both of which are emissions-intensive. With 60,000 or so ships in service, they account for an estimated 2.8% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a p…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


Enterprise Products Partners doesn’t just extract mixed NGLs from associated gas at processing plants, transport that Y-grade to the NGL hub at Mont Belvieu, and fractionate NGLs into “purity products” like ethane, propane and butanes. The midstream giant also distributes purity products to Gulf Coast steam crackers and refineries, converts propane…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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You Never Even Called Me by My Name - 'NYMEX WTI' Is Not WTI: The Battle Over Crude Oil Quality
12:37
CME’s NYMEX light sweet crude oil contract in Cushing, OK, is not West Texas Intermediate — WTI. Instead, it is Domestic Sweet — commonly referred to as DSW — with quality specifications that are broader and generally inferior to Midland-sourced WTI. In fact, pristine Midland WTI delivered to Cushing sells at a reasonably healthy premium to DSW. Th…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


On average, the landowners and other entities that own mineral and royalty interests in producing oil and gas wells receive about 20% of the gross revenues generated by those wells — and do so without any responsibility for the significant costs and complications associated with well development and production. Mineral and royalty interests have tr…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


A great deal of attention has been heaped on the carbon-capture industry over the past couple of years, from its inclusion in major federal legislation such as 2021’s infrastructure bill and last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, plus all sorts of recently announced carbon sequestration projects. Still, there are plenty of concerns that the technolog…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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Baby the RINs Must Fall, Part 2 - Will a RIN Price Crash Make a Mess in the Renewable Diesel Market?
13:38
U.S. production of hydrogenated renewable diesel (RD), made from soybean oil and animal fats like used cooking oil, is growing faster than expected. That may sound like good news for the renewable fuels industry, but it comes with the fear that the rapid growth might trigger a sudden crash of Renewable Identification Number (RIN) prices that — if i…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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Fly Me to the Moon - Ethane Prices Rocket into Space, then Crash to Earth on Tuesday. What Happened?
14:01
In just over a month, the price of Mont Belvieu purity ethane doubled, from 19 c/gal to 39 c/gal on Friday. Sure, the price of natural gas was up about 15% over the same period. But that increase was nowhere near ethane’s, so it was certainly not the price of gas that was making ethane take off. In fact, with ethane rocketing into space and gas pri…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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50 Ways to Leave (Louisiana) - Pipeline Expansions Key to Unlocking the Second Wave of LNG Exports
10:35
The bulk of the second wave of U.S. LNG export projects will be situated along a small stretch of the Gulf Coast, from Port Arthur at the Texas-Louisiana border to the Mississippi River in southeastern Louisiana. Three of these projects — Golden Pass LNG, Port Arthur LNG and Plaquemines LNG — are under construction there and will add nearly 7 Bcf/d…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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The Equaliser - Canadian Gas Market Slowly Rebalancing Thanks to Improved Exports, Less Production
13:19
In natural gas markets, warmer-than-average winters usually translate into oversupply conditions as heating demand draws less gas out of storage than what would normally be expected. When compounded by rapidly rising domestic production and soft gas exports, the result is even greater oversupply. That is exactly how the Canadian gas market finished…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


Back in the early 2000s, the outlook for energy security in the U.S. was bleak. Domestic oil production had been on a steady decline since 1985 and gas production was also well off its apex in the 1970s. M. King Hubbert’s concept of peak oil ignited fears of eventual energy scarcity. Given fossil fuels’ ubiquity underlying our entire Western econom…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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You've Got Another Thing Comin' - How Will Steeper Tolls on Trans Mountain Impact Crude Flows?
17:32
Western Canada’s Trans Mountain Expansion Project, better-known as TMX, has experienced more than its share of setbacks over the past 10 years: environmental protests, legal challenges, financing issues, an ownership change, and even a serious flooding event in 2021. But it seems the 590-Mb/d expansion of the now-300-Mb/d Trans Mountain Pipeline (T…
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RBN Energy Blogcast


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... Ready for It?, Part 4 - Enterprise's NGL Transportation, Storage, Fractionation and Export Machine
13:05
Less than a handful of U.S. midstream companies own and operate extensive NGL networks that do it all: extract mixed NGLs from associated gas at their processing plants, transport that “Y-grade” to their underground salt-cavern storage facilities in Mont Belvieu, fractionate mixed NGLs into so-called “purity products” at their fractionators, then p…
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