Frac Spread: NGL Prices Are Sunshine On A Downcycle Day

The sentiment in Fort Worth, Texas, at this week’s DUG Permian Basin conference was one of cautious pessimism. This downcycle has lasted so much longer than expected that even the recent rally in prices was viewed skeptically.

Sure, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil is almost double what it was in February, but doesn’t that mean that the next plunge into the $20s is around the corner?

Actually, no, it doesn’t. What it means is that the price of WTI is almost double what it was at its low point and that from here, it will either go up or down, depending on how traders react on a given day.

That might not sit well with devotees of certain contrarian analysts, but the crowd in Fort Worth elected to depart the conference on a cheery bounce, fueled by a dose of go-get-’em optimism endemic to this business.

And not to ruin anyone’s rainy parade with a burst of sunshine, but the price of the hypothetical NGL barrel climbed again this week, reaching a 12-month high for the second week in a row and surpassing $20 in consecutive weeks for the first time since mid-October. The Mont Belvieu, Texas, barrel’s price of $21.74 was 5.5% higher than it was a year ago.

All five components rose this week at Mont Belvieu, led by a 2.9% increase in C₅₊, and all but propane were up at the Conway, Kan., hub. Propane leveled off this week after last week’s double-digit climbs at both hubs. However, propane’s price is up 30% at Mont Belvieu over the same week of 2015 and up 34.7% at Conway.

Ethane inched upward at less than 1% at both Mont Belvieu and Conway for the week, but prices were still up 8.7% over the same time last year at Mont Belvieu and 9.3% at Conway.

The weekly change in butane, though it cracked 65 cents per gallon (/gal) at Mont Belvieu, was also nothing to write online about, but its 21.8% lift from the same time frame last year and 38.2% increase at Conway show just how far the recovery has come. Mont Belvieu’s price was its highest since the week of April 15-21, 2015, but even that was an anomaly, a return to its glory of late February and early March of last year. Conway’s price last reached this level in late February 2015, as well, but did not enjoy as sharp a bounce last April.

Isobutane eclipsed 69 cents/gal at Mont Belvieu, its highest point since its weekly average was just shy of 72 cents/gal during the week of Feb. 25-March 3, 2015. At Conway, isobutane neared 73 cents/gal, its highest mark since mid-March of last year. Year over year, Mont Belvieu’s price was up 25.7% and Conway’s up 33.3%.

Pentanes plus crossed the $1/gal mark at Mont Belvieu for the first time since November. Although down 18.8% compared to the price last year at this time, it is still 56.7% above its low for the year of 64.58 cents/galof mid-February. At Conway, C₅₊ rose 2.3% for the week, though it was off 12% compared to the same time last year. The Conway price is 59.6% its low point for the year, also in mid-February.

U.S. natural gas storage rose 71 billion cubic feet (Bcf) or about 2.6% during the week ending May 20, to 2.825 trillion cubic feet (Tcf). The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported storage as 36.5% above the 2.069 Tcf level of a year ago and 37.4% over the five-year average of 2.056 Tcf from 2011 to 2015.

The topping off of storage tanks was a concern shared by upstream players at DUG Permian Basin. In his presentation on the outlook for the basin, Rick Lester, CEO of Opal Resources LLC, questioned not whether the downcycle was complete (he believed it was) but how strong the next upcycle would be.

The very high storage levels of crude oil constitute a major headwind, Lester said: “We have to get storage down to a level that we’ve seen in the past.”

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