Sheela Tobben

Jun 19, 2024 | rbnenergy.com | Sheela Tobben

The Nederland/Beaumont hub resembles Houston in that it serves more refineries than export facilities. Located in southeastern Texas along the Sabine-Neches Waterway, it’s home to four major refineries with a combined capacity of 1.8 MMb/d, three of which are in Port Arthur. Until 2023, Motiva’s Port Arthur refinery (brown refinery icon in Figure 1 above) was the country’s largest at 626 Mb/d.

Jun 10, 2024 | rbnenergy.com | Sheela Tobben

The March appropriations bill passed by Congress and signed by President Biden to fund the federal government mandated the emptying of the federal gasoline reserve in fiscal year 2024, which concludes September 30, followed by its eventual closure. That means about 1 MMbbl — 42 MM gallons — of gasoline will find its way to the market in the next few months, or in as little as a few weeks.

May 30, 2024 | rbnenergy.com | Sheela Tobben

If you asked someone where U.S. crude oil shipments would go when the Obama administration ended the ban on most crude exports in December 2015, it’s not likely that Nigeria would have come to mind. Yet this year marked the second time since the restrictions ended that U.S. oil has been sent to the OPEC member, this time to feed its long-awaited Dangote refinery. In today’s RBN blog, we will examine this development and the prospects for more U.S. exports to the West African nation.

May 21, 2024 | rbnenergy.com | Sheela Tobben

The Houston crude oil hub has become busier over the last few months, and if one or more proposals to build a deepwater export terminal nearby capable of fully loading a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) cross the finish line, it could become the hub supplying them. That could push Permian Basin oil flows on Houston-bound pipelines higher at the expense of flows to Nederland and Corpus Christi.

Dec 17, 2023 | rbnenergy.com | Sheela Tobben

We’ve reached the two-year anniversary of the reversal of the joint-venture Capline crude oil pipeline. With its current north-to-south flow, it adds to the few conduits that can move oil from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast, specifically the St. James, LA, oil hub. Flows have been on a steady climb since southbound service began in December 2021, but volumes appear to be short of its available capacity, and there are looming headwinds.