European Natural Gas: Dutch-German Flows At Record highs -- May 27, 2020

Locator: 10010GRONINGEN.

Updates

January 8, 2024: the Dutch will go back to the Groningen. Worse cold snap in decades in Europe -- Europe could run out of the stuff with which Europeans heat their homes, including natural gas.

July 30, 2021: natural gas prices surging in Europe; severe shortage, and it could get worse. 

May 28, 2020: Natural gas prices cratering.

• pricing:
• HH: Henry Hub, US pricing
• JKM: Asia pricing
• TTF: Netherlands pricing 

Original Post

 

The blog concentrates on US shale crude oil. I've never understood natural gas very well, but, wow, there's a lot going on in natural gas, just as in the crude oil sector.

Without question, when the history is written, the tectonic changes in global energy that occurred in 2020 will certainly merit a chapter of its own.

Some odds and ends.

From ArgusMedia, data points:

• natural gas flows from Holland to Germany are hitting monthly highs, due to:
• German nuclear power plant maintenance; and, 
• incredibly inexpensive natural gas
• Dutch discount on natural gas is widest in a decade
• last year, same month (May): the Netherlands was a net importer of natural gas from Germany
• and get this: German imports increased even as Dutch power demand rose
• see Groningen at this link; or search "Groningen" on the blog; 

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Groningen

Output at Europe's giant Groningen gas field plunges in December, 2019, dents Dutch stocks -- S&P Global Platts, January 15, 2020, link here.

• Dutch gas stocks fall below 2018 levels; well below the European average
• a production cap has been put in place to prevent earthquakes linked to gas extraction at Groningen and the Dutch government plans to phase out gas extraction at the field completely by mid-2022.
• the rapid decline in production of gas from Groningen will continue to make the Netherlands increasingly dependent on LNG and pipeline gas imports from Norway and Russia

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For The Archives

This is old news but I was not interested in it at the time. But juxtaposed with this, posted a few days ago, makes it very topical:

Natural gas -- who would have thought? Oil plays with major impact on natural gas. This is very, very interesting. Anyone paying attention saw it coming but I haven't seen many analysts talking about it until now, but the monthly EIA dashboards foreshadowed it all.

At the linked article:

• Shell is exiting natural gas play in Pennsylvania
• Swepi LP, E&P arm of Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shelll
• selling its Pennsylvania assets to National Fuel gas Co for $541 million
• 450,000 acres in northern PA, along with 350 wells
• $541 million / 450,000 acres = $1200 / acre
• in the dry gas area that does not produce ethane
• Shell looking for ethane to turn into plastic at its petrochemical plan under construction in Potter, PA
• the new Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex
• 6,000 construction jobs; 600 permanent employees
• and that connects the Bakken dot -- remember all those Bakken stories about ethane rejection?
• Shell burst onto the Appalachian scene in 2020 with a blockbuster acquisition of Marshall-based East Resources
• $4.7 billion deal
• ushered in a wave of megadeals that brought the world's majors to Pennsylvania
• many are now leaving
• Chevron is looking to sell its Appalachian portfolio; 890,000 acres in the Marcellus and Utica 
• Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio

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Very Familiar?

Chris Stapleton's Tennessee Whiskey and Etta James' I'd Rather Go Blind.

Tennessee Whiskey, Chris Stapleton
From wiki:

American singer-songwriter Chris Stapleton recorded an R&B-influenced cover of the song for his debut studio album Traveller released in 2015.bStapleton first sang his version on the spur of the moment while the band were playing during a soundcheck before a show in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Now Etta James:

I'd Rather Go Blind, Etta James
I've posted the Etta James song numerous times on the blog. See Tell Mama / FAME, Muscle Shoals, Alabama at wiki.

I love the ease of finding / playing music with all the new technology (iTunes; Alexa, etc) but I do have to admit when listening to Etta James after midnight, I do miss the days of the vinyl LP. There's something to be said for a library of cardboard slips, with the great cover art, and the liner notes inside.

If I had had all the money in the world, I would have built a huge house with one huge room dedicated to hanging all those great album covers. For one list of the top 50 greatest album covers, link here. See if your favorite album cover made the list. Mine did not. Having said that, it would be impossible to limit the list to fifty.

One section of one wall would have been devoted to the Blondie album covers. I still have four of them stored away somewhere.

Long ago, in a faraway place, in a previous life, a wonderful woman, well before I ever heard of Etta James, but it's Etta James that transports me back to that time and place. Pretty amazing.