Tuesday, April 17, 2018 -- Wow, Talk About Timely -- Today's RBN Energy Post -- NGLs

Active rigs:

$66.07	4/17/2018	04/17/2017	04/17/2016	04/17/2015	04/17/2014
Active Rigs	60	52	29	93	186

RBN Energy: today's horrific petchem margins and the implications for NGLs. A reader sent me a note yesterday -- how bad ethane rejection was. Today, RBN energy talks about it. How incredibly timely. I might come back to this later.

Could it get any worse? Possibly, but the last time we saw petchem margins this bad was in the depths of the 2008-09 economic meltdown, and back then the atrocious margin levels resulted in drastic plant curtailments and in some cases permanent shutdowns. But this time around the petchem industry is in the process of bringing on even more capacity! Is the current situation a fluke, or a harbinger of things to come? In today’s blog we examine recent trends in steam cracker margins, by far the largest demand sector for natural gas liquids (NGLs) and consider what these developments may mean for NGL markets in general, and ethane in particular.

Wagging the dog: if folks think the missile launch was Trump wagging the dog, just wait until Mueller gets ready to release his report. LOL.