Frac Spread: NGL Price Rally Eases, But May Was Still A Merry Month

The NGL price rally took a breather over the long Memorial Day weekend, but the hypothetical barrel still topped $21 for the third straight week—the first time since mid-May 2015 that it’s been able to sustain prices in that range for that period of time.

The average May barrel at Mont Belvieu, Texas, reached $21.11, or 10.8% above the April barrel. At Conway, Kan., the $20.65 price beat April’s barrel by 11.5%. Mont Belvieu’s May barrel is 42.7% ahead of January, and Conway’s is up by 44.8%.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) monthly report showed NGL production growing sharply in March compared to February, rebounding from four straight monthly declines. Simmons & Co. International noted, however, that total liquids production declined on a year-over-year basis for the second straight month.

The May barrel at Mont Belvieu was off only 7 cents from May 2015 and down 6.9% at Conway. However, with the exception of natural gasoline, the components of the barrel showed stronger market prices in May 2016 than they did a year ago.

Mont Belvieu ethane was up 3.5% in May, compared to a year ago, and Conway was up 6.5%. Propane increased 12.3% at Mont Belvieu and 20.4% at Conway. Butane was up 8.8% at Mont Belvieu and 22.5% at Conway. Mont Belvieu’s isobutane price was 11.5% above the May 2015 price, and Conway’s was up 22.8%.

C₅₊continued its recent rally, but lagged May 2015’s price by 23.9% at Mont Belvieu and 17% at Conway.

Weekly composite changes were less dramatic: the NGL barrel slipped 5 cents at Mont Belvieu and gained 1 cent in Conway.

However, Mont Belvieu ethane, up 1.2% for the week, is also 6.8% above its price at the start of May and 30.2% over its average for the first quarter. At Conway, the weekly increase was less than 1%, though it was up 7.3% from the start of the month and 22.9% higher than the first-quarter average.

Compared to the same week in 2015, Mont Belvieu ethane was up 15% and Conway up 7.1%.

Propane, which has led the recent NGL rally, was off 1.6% at Mont Belvieu to 53.2 cents per gallon (/gal) and 1.3% at Conway to 50.06 cents/gal. The Mont Belvieu price was still 31.7% over the 40.4 cents/gal price of the same week in 2015, and the Conway price beat last year’s 37.16 cents/gal price by 34.7%.

Isobutane dropped less than 1 cent/gal, or 1.1% at Mont Belvieu, but gained 1.58 cents, or 2.2% at Conway. At Mont Belvieu, the price was 22.1% higher than the same week last year, and 35.7% higher at Conway.

While trailing 2015 levels, C₅₊ still eked out a 1.0% gain for the week and rose for the third straight week. Its average weekly price topped $1/gal for the second straight week for the first time since early November. At Conway, the C₅₊ price of $1.0619/gal was 0.7% more than last week’s and marked the third consecutive week above $1/gal for the first time since early August 2015.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s weekly natural gas storage report for the week ending May 27 showed an increase of 82 billion cubic feet (Bcf) to 2.907 trillion cubic feet (Tcf). That’s 32.4% above the level of 2.195 Tcf last year at this time and 35% over the five-year average of 2.154 Tcf for 2011 to 2015.

However, the storage build falls about 1 Bcf short of the forecast by Pearce Hammonds of Simmons and well short of the 126 Bcf increase for the same week in 2015.

Simmons reports that clients are indicating disappointment with the relatively modest month-to-month production declines in the DOE’s report for March. That may be attributable to the department’s own rather aggressive crude oil forecast for a cut of 144,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) for the Lower 48. Output dropped by 64,000 bbl/d.

But the bigger picture for production, as for NGL prices, is rosier.

“The street emphasis,” Simmons wrote, “has become too fixated on the month-over-month rate of decline as the year-over-year declines point to accelerating production declines of considerable magnitude.”

Joseph Markman can be reached at jmarkman@hartenergy.com and @JHMarkman.