Locator: 48772B.
Updates
August 5, 2025: WMB's earnings.
August 5, 2025: Oneok's earnings.
Original Post
Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.
Recession: recession talk back on the table; I think folks are using terms incorrectly --
- a drop in GPD is not the same thing as negative growth
- negative GDP for two consecutive quarters is generally considered to be the definition of a recession
- tech stocks surging today; hardly feels like an impeding recession
- how does the interpretation of employment numbers relate to GDP during an AI revolution?
- some might argue that recent employment numbers are related directly to the AI revolution, and not to "old-school" metrics, and to tariff-anxiety
- if so, lower employment numbers not as concerning as they might otherwise be
- Trump is incredibly astute and nimble; has continuously adjusted tariffs
- safety nets still in place; consumers still spending.
- Russell 2000 up 1.3% today; Russell 2000 would be first to sell of if traders really thought a recession was back on the table
- recession talk seems bogus; seems like traders are tossing gasoline on the fire to stimulate trading, and, from that, stimulating their (traders') profits.
- still using pullbacks to invest
- horizon: rolling 30-year horizon
- being very, very careful on new money going into tech
- more active cleaning up portfolio: using tax-loss harvesting to buy more pipelines
OKE: earnings after market close today --
AOL: three energy stocks to buy with $500 and hold forever, August 3, 2025, Motley Fool, link here:
- XOM: not uexpected
- ENB: awesome -- one of my personal favorites -- and I get more excited about ENB every day (similarly excited about OKE)
- somehow I lost track of ENB; hadn't been following it;
- I've always considered ENB a $30-stock -- today trading at $46.
- that's not surprising: I generally don't look at any of my holding which I plant to hold "forever."
- NextEra: don't follow
Boeing: another strike. Not expected to impact Boeing all that much.
ChatGPT: reports surge in daily usage, m/m. Set to hit 700 million weekly active users this week.
Pipelines:
- OKE: up over 1% today; pays 5.16%;
- ENB: up just under 1% today; pays 5.87%;
- EPD: up just under 1% today; pays 7.03%;
- KMI: up 1% today; pays 4.12%
- DAPL:
- ET: 36%
- other major owners
- MarEN Bakken LLC (MPLX LP + Enbridge EnergyPartners)
- Phillips 66 Partners
- Major Permian pipelines:
- the Gray Oak Pipeline: to Corpus Christi: was operated be Phillips 66, now operated by Enbridge; owners: Enbridge, Phillips 66, MPC, FANG; expanding.
- the Permian Highway Pipeline: to US Gulf Coast; subsidiary of KMI, Kinetick Holdings, and XOM:
- the Whistler Pipeline: to the Agua Dulce hub in South Texas; owner Whistler
- the Blackcomb Pipeline: to Agua Dulce; multiple owners, but of the 50% not owned by WPC Joint Venture, MPLX (MPC) holds 30% and Enbridge holds 51%;
- the Saguaro Connector Pipeline: planned; to the Mexico border; owned by Mexico Pacific and ONEOK;
- the Cushing Pipeline: to Cushing, OK
- the Matterhorn Express Pipeline: natural gas pipeline; owned by WhiteWater Midstream, MPLX LP (MP_, and Enbridge
- the High Brinson Pipeline: large-diameter natural gas pipeline; Energy Transfer (ET); from the Permian to the DFW area! To be operational by 2026. But will connect with ET's existing pipeline to the coast for export.
- the DeLa Express Pipeline: proposed, liquids-rich natural gas to Gulf Coast; Moss Lake Partners;
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Back to the Bakken
WTI: $66.12.
New wells:
- Tuesday, August 5, 2025: 11 for the month, 59 for the quarter, 489 for the year,
- 41462, conf, Kraken, Boxcar 4-9-16 2H,
- 41268, conf, CLR, Michael State 3-16H1,
- 40773, conf, Hess, BL-JE Ulven-155-96-0322H-2,
- Monday, August 4, 2025: 8 for the month, 56 for the quarter, 486 for the year,
- 41267 , conf, CLR, Michael State 2-16H,
- Sunday, August 3, 2025: 7 for the month, 55 for the quarter, 485 for the year,
- 40722, conf, Hess, BL-JE Ulven-155-96-0322H-1,
- Saturday, August 2, 2025: 6 for the month, 54 for the quarter, 484 for the year,
- 34292, conf, BR, State Dodge 3A MBH,
RBN Energy: Enbridge's oil pipeline expansions likely to spur more projects downstream. Archived.
Western Canadian crude oil production is rising fast. To keep pace, Enbridge is planning expansions to its pipelines into the Midwest and Great Plains. But PADD 2 refineries are maxed out on heavy crude, so virtually all those incremental barrels will need to keep flowing south to refineries and export terminals along the Gulf Coast. Can the pipelines from PADD 2 to PADD 3 handle the higher volumes? In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the knock-on effects of rising Western Canadian production and Enbridge’s pipeline expansions.
A few months ago, in Here, There and Everywhere, we examined Enbridge’s plan to spend up to C$2 billion (US$1.5 billion) by 2028 to improve the efficiency and reliability of its 3.28-MMb/d Mainline pipeline system from Alberta to the Midwest that the midstreamer has said will increase its 96% utilization rate by 1% or 2%. Enbridge also is investing another C$1.5 billion (US$1.1 billion) by 2027 on a multiphase optimization project that will boost the system’s capacity by 150 Mb/d — and maybe more, if demand warrants. In addition, the company is looking to add up to 30 Mb/d of capacity to its 310-Mb/d Express-Platte pipeline system, which runs from Hardisty, AB, to Wood River, IL, just west of the Patoka, IL, crude oil hub. Enbridge has hinted that further expansions to Express-Platte are possible.
More recently, in You’ve Got a Friend in Me, we discussed our latest forecast for Western Canadian crude oil production and stacked that up against available and planned pipeline capacity out of the region. The bottom line? Even with the May 2024 startup of the 590-Mb/d Trans Mountain Expansion Project (TMX) to Canada’s British Columbia coast, 180 Mb/d in planned expansions to Enbridge’s pipelines (150 Mb/d on the Mainline and 30 Mb/d on Express-Platte) by 2027, and higher utilization of the Mainline (maybe another 50 Mb/d), Western Canadian producers and shippers may well face a takeaway capacity crunch by late 2028 — only three years from now. In other words, keep those capacity-adding projects comin’!
In today’s blog, we assume that our production forecast is on point and that Enbridge will find shipper support for another 150 Mb/d in Mainline expansions, resulting in a total of 380 Mb/d of incremental flows down the Mainline and Express-Platte systems by the late 2020s (150 from initial Mainline expansion + 30 from Express-Platte expansion + 50 from Mainline efficiencies + 150 from future Mainline expansion). That all raises a new and important question: Where will that extra 380 Mb/d end up?
Let’s begin with a little background. Canadian crude oil exports to the U.S. have more than doubled over the past 15 years, from about 2 MMb/d in 2010 to 4.2 MMb/d in 2024. PADD 2 (Midwest/Great Plains) is by far the largest destination, accounting for two-thirds (or about 2.8 MMb/d; dark-blue layer in Figure 1 below) of last year’s total. Of the 2.8 MMb/d that ended up in PADD 2, ~2.3 MMb/d was heavy crude and the rest (~500 Mb/d) was light/medium crude — together, these types accounted for 73% of the more than 3.8 MMb/d of crude PADD 2 refineries received, on average, in 2024, with Western Canadian heavy accounting for 60% of their crude slate and Western Canadian light/medium making up 13%. (The 27% balance was U.S.-sourced light oil.)
Canadian Crude Oil Exports to the U.S. by PADD
Figure 1. Canadian Crude Oil Exports to the U.S. by PADD.
Sources: EIA and Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers
