RBN Energy Blogcast

We’ve blogged about rising demand for natural gas in the southeastern U.S. and the pipeline projects being planned there. But there’s more to the story — a bigger picture — namely, that gas consumers in the region increasingly find themselves competing for supply with LNG exporters.

The U.S. propane market is in a unique position. Production has continued to grow while domestic demand remains stagnant. The only solution for the market to balance is exports; however, those have been constrained by capacity at the dock. Today, we continue our examination of the propane market. 

There are three main factors affecting today’s propane market: export economics, dock space and storage levels. The Iran war has dramatically shifted export economics and filled dock space, yet storage remains at all-time highs. In today’s RBN blog, we look at what’s in store for the rest of 2026.

The rapid expansion of data centers is one of the biggest stories in the energy sector and the Monarch Compute Campus, which will soon start taking shape in West Virginia, could be a compelling test case for future development. Today, we look at the strategy behind it.

The energy industry touts vast U.S. oil and gas resources, but increasingly limited volumes that can be practically and profitably developed have left producers struggling to replace proven reserves. Today, we analyze the trends that are limiting the industry’s ability to ramp up future output.

Crude oil production from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin continues to grow, but U.S. PADD 2 refiners are already taking nearly as much as they can. Growing production could move into Cushing, OK, and Patoka, IL, but will there be enough pipeline capacity to reach the Gulf Coast? 

The West Coast, particularly California, has been the U.S. region hardest hit by the war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, particularly regarding the Golden State’s ability to obtain refined product imports. Today, we discuss the impact of the closure.

A combination of new natural gas takeaway capacity out of the Permian, rising feedgas demand from LNG export terminals and stronger gas prices at the Waha Hub will support a steady increase in associated gas production. But an important question looms: Will there be enough gas processing capacity?

Nashville is known for its music, but it’s also a fast-growing gasoline and diesel market, uniquely positioned between the Gulf Coast and Midwest. With major development projects planned, such as the new Tennessee Titans stadium, it’s getting to be a tight squeeze for the area’s fuel terminals.

Managements in Q4 2025 stuck to the capital discipline that won back the hearts and wallets of investors, but surging oil and gas prices this year are putting more cash back into E&P coffers. Will that discipline hold, or will temptation take over?

As rising AI-driven demand for data centers has supported growth in key markets like Virginia and Texas, developers are increasingly casting a wider net. Today, we examine the factors drawing large-scale projects to “non-key” states, with a close look at Indiana, Louisiana, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

U.S. refineries are, of course, far less dependent on crude oil from the Middle East than they were before the Shale Revolution. But the cutoff in oil supplies from the Persian Gulf is forcing several U.S. refiners to look elsewhere for the mostly medium-sour crude they had been sourcing from the region.

As crude oil production continues to grow in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, more pipeline capacity will be needed. The 590-Mb/d Trans Mountain Expansion in 2024 temporarily provided a period of surplus capacity, but that is shrinking. Today, we go through all the projects in the works.

U.S. LNG has been on the fast track as new export capacity along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast draws in increasing volumes of U.S. natural gas. The impact of that unprecedented buildout only intensified over the past several weeks with the war in Iran and its effects on Persian Gulf LNG.

The roiling of global energy markets by war in the Middle East has magnified the importance of domestic oil output and heightened interest in capital spending. Today, we look at the 2026 forecasts and offer some far-too-early speculation about the industry response to the recent surge in oil prices.

Permian wells are churning out 22 Bcf/d of residue natural gas, but for many producers that gas abundance is a hindrance. A persistent shortfall in takeaway capacity has made negative prices at Waha an all-too-regular thing. But the situation will soon be changing for the much-better.

There’s no shortage of work to be done to revive Venezuela’s crude oil industry, much of which suffered from years of poor management and minimal investment. One rehabilitation effort that could deliver a lot of bang for the buck would be to repair and restart the industry’s crude upgraders.

Data center development is booming across the country. But power and water supplies, fiber connectivity, and regulatory environments differ across states. Today’s RBN blog compares seven leading states for data centers on the key factors that help determine development outcomes.

The war-related loss of LNG export capacity in Qatar suggests that existing and planned LNG export terminals along the U.S. Gulf Coast will be running flat-out over the next few years, and that the Texas/Louisiana region will need even more natural gas storage capacity than previously figured.

End markets for Canadian crude oil have evolved as production and export capacity have grown, especially in the past few years. Today, we dig into the data to see where Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin crude oil supply goes, how it gets there, and how those destination markets have evolved.

The ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Iran and the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz isn’t just stranding significant volumes of refined products in the Persian Gulf. It’s also resulting in potentially extensive and long-lasting damage to some refineries there and trapping crude oil that Asian refiners depend on.

A regulatory topic that had long been very backburner — the so-called “311” transportation of natural gas — is suddenly front and center because it applies to the slew of new, mostly intrastate pipelines that have been built across Texas to get Permian gas to LNG terminals on the Texas and Louisiana coasts.

The upstream oil and gas sector has been periodically roiled by dramatic price swings triggered by world events over the last five decades. Today, we analyze the impact of bottoming oil prices on earnings and cash flows as the industry girds for an unpredictable 2026.

Crude oil supply from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin continues to grow. At times, it has exceeded the region’s outbound pipeline capacity. Today, we’ll take a close look at the periods of pipeline surplus and scarcity, and how they correlate with WCSB price discounts relative to U.S. price benchmarks.

More Canadian heavy crude barrels are on their way to the U.S. Gulf Coast and some, if not most, of that oil could be taking a somewhat circuitous route — through the Rocky Mountain states. Today, we discuss highlights from RBN’s new multiclient study on this important topic, developed with Plainview Energy Analytics.