NGL Pricing Improves -- RBN Energy -- September 20, 2016

It appears Yahoo!Mail is down in our area. I am unable to respond to e-mail. A reader sent me an article this morning regarding "Peak Oil." I will try to reply to that reader again later. 

WTI, futures: below $43 prior to open Tuesday, September 20, 2016. At $42.86.

How bad might it be in Saudi Arabia? From The Washington Post: employees at one of Saudi

• Arabia's largest privately-run hospitals have not been paid for four months. Data points:
  Saad Specialist Hospital, eastern city of al-Khobar; 15-y/o facility
• considered one of the top hospitals in the region; attracts physicians from all over the world
• financial problems began in 2009
• 200 employees on strike; more joining the strike
• employs around 5,000 people; about 19% Saudi nationals
• last paid salaries in May, 2016

This very likely could be due to issues other than current financial problems associated with low crude oil prices.

Active rigs:

	9/20/2016	09/20/2015	09/20/2014	09/20/2013	09/20/2012
Active Rigs	32	67	196	182	184

RBN Energy: NGL-to-crude ratio pricing heading back to pre-2012 level.

The ratio of NGL-to-crude oil prices looks like it will be rebounding, and over the next two or three years could rise to levels not seen since the Shale Revolution brought down NGL prices at the end of 2012, a signal that all of the new NGL-consuming petrochemical cracker projects now under construction may not be as lucrative as their developers had once hoped. Several factors are driving the ratio’s rise: increasing U.S. demand for NGLs; more exports; stubbornly low crude oil prices and a lower trajectory of NGL production growth. Today, we examine the historical relationship between NGL and crude oil prices and the reasons why that ratio may be headed back above 50%.

The Shale Revolution has had many market effects –– it’s made fortunes, transformed regions like the Marcellus/Utica and Bakken into energy and economic powerhouses, and given the U.S. a degree of energy independence that few would have predicted a decade ago. It’s also wreaked havoc on what for years had been reliably consistent relationships or ratios between different types of hydrocarbons. The NGL-to-crude ratio is a case in point. First, an explanation. As we at RBN define the measure, the NGL-to-crude ratio is a weighted average of OPIS/Mont Belvieu natural gas liquids (NGLs) prices divided by CME/NYMEX front month crude oil futures. The weighted average for the NGL mix that we use to calculate the ratio is 42% ethane, 28% propane, 11% normal butane, 6% isobutane, and 13% natural gasoline. 

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The Market

Close: My original note was wrong. The market finished very strong after the Fed announced "no" rate raise; Dow 30 up 164 points. Warren Buffett quoted today: "There comes a point where money has no real utility." NYSE:

• new highs:  33
• new lows: 26

Opening: Dow 30 up 80. 

Futures: up 63.

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A Note for the Granddaughters

Helen of Troy: The Story Behind the Most Beautiful Woman in the World

Bettany Hughes

c. 2005

p. xxxvi: author transliterated all Greek, including the Bronze Age version of ancient Greek, 'Linear B'; hence PA-MA-KO has become pharmakon ('useful little things' -- the 3,500 year old root of our word pharmacy).