Nothing exemplifies the phrase, Hope springs eternal,” like the start of a Major League Baseball season.

While fans of perennial contenders typically have more reason for optimism, other fans need look no further than the Kansas City Royals. After ending a nine-year losing streak, the Royals won the American League pennant and took the San Francisco Giants to seven games before losing the 2014 World Series.

On the flip side, there is every chance that a perennial contender can slip the other way and have a losing season.

It is becoming increasingly clear that 2015 may be a lost year for crude oil, natural gas and NGL prices in spite of long-term forecasts that show demand growing for these products on a global basis.

The spring shoulder season saw a downturn in demand in each of these markets. In addition, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude and NGL markets have faced various headwinds.

There have been very large storage builds at the Cushing, Okla., crude hub. However, the capacity expansions that have taken place at the hub in recent years are helping to lessen fears of capacity constraints.

The temporary shutdown in March of the Houston Ship Channel following a ship collision resulted in a build-up of both crude and LPG stocks.

Propane stock levels at the close of winter were at their highest levels ever for that time of year, and will require LPG exports to work off the overhang and improve prices.

Additionally, ethane cracker outages in early spring are also halting the growth this market has been experiencing. Though this downturn could be temporary, there are further worries ahead in the ethane market, which is unlikely to recover for several years.

Low prices continue to encourage heavy rejection throughout the country, which could result in ethane inventories falling below 20 million barrels for the first time since October 2011 when margins were very positive. However, if this scenario occurs, then the market will have to call on rejected barrels to be extracted.

This includes extraction from regions that are still seeing steady rig counts, such as the Marcellus Shale. The problem is that the Marcellus is still at a transportation disadvantage when it comes to profitability for ethane.

To continue the comparison to baseball, we know that the U.S. hydrocarbon market has a great future and will be a winner once again.

What isn’t known is how well the current season will play out.

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