Four Wells Coming Off Confidential List -- November 26, 2023

Locator: 46195B.

WTI: $75.68.

Wednesday, November 29, 2023: 144 for the month; 144 for the quarter, 714 for the year
39174, conf, Liberty Resources, Sylvia N 158-93-16-14-4MBHX,
39172, conf, Liberty Resources, Alton N Federal 158-93-16-14-2MBHX,
39171, conf, Liberty Resources, Alton N 158-93-16-14-1MBHX,
37110, conf, BR, Carlsbad 4A UTFH,

Tuesday, November 28, 2023: 140 for the month; 140 for the quarter, 710 for the year
39820, conf, Crescent Point Energy, CPEUSC Matilda May 6A-29-32-158N-1000W-MBH-LL,
39814, conf, CLR, North Tarentaise Federal 10-18H2, the North Tarentaise wells are tracked here.
39145, conf, Enerplus, LK Bice 147-96-6-31-2H, the "LK" for Little Knife; these wells are tracked here.
37109, conf, BR, Carlsbad 3D MBH,

RBN Energy: polar vortex 2013 - 2014 propane market chaos and what it means today.

It’s the 10-year anniversary of a polar vortex winter that’s seared into the memories of every propaner who lived through it. Shortages. High prices. Government inquiries. Sure, there were difficulties during that winter in the markets for natural gas and fuel oil too, but it was particularly bad for propane. It seemed like a perfect storm hit the propane market right where it hurt the most — in the heart of propane country: the Upper Midwest and the Northeast. A lot has changed since then, but it’s important to look back at what went wrong, what’s been done to make a repeat of that chaotic winter far less likely, and what those events still mean for the propane market today. 

The propane market conditions that cascaded into the chaos of 2013-14 started innocently enough, with rain — lots of it. In the fall of 2013, propane marketers were enjoying 5X the usual seasonal demand from the market for drying crops, especially corn. On November 10, 2013, the Midwest was enjoying the largest bumper crop of corn in the record books up to that time, and due to the very rainy conditions before the harvest, the “wet” corn needed a lot more drying than usual. But that’s not all that was going on. One of the historical conduits for propane into the Midwest from Western Canada, the Cochin Pipeline, was being reversed and converted by Kinder Morgan, the operator in those days — the pipe’s now owned by Pembina — from propane to diluent service so natural gasoline and naphtha could be moved up to Alberta. At the same time, propane exports from the Gulf Coast were ramping up, pulling more supplies that otherwise would have gone to the Midwest down to supply the export market. By October 1, the price of propane in Conway, KS — the primary hub for Midwest and Midcontinent supplies — had increased to $1/gallon, up from about $0.85/gallon during the summer. [Note that in this blog we are going to focus on the Midwest propane market, which felt the most significant impact that winter, but similar developments were happening in the Northeast and to a lesser extent in the Southeast and Gulf Coast.]