A funny thing happened in ERCOT in June and July. While the grid (mercifully) didn’t experience any major outages, wind generation actually fell year-over-year from the prior-year periods – despite an increase in wind generation capacity. There remains a great deal of uncertainty surrounding climate change and wind cyclicality. In

PADD 1 oil demand in decline U.S. oil refiners largely managed to survive the COVID-19 demand shock. Sometimes, as Dunkirk proved, survival is victory. With the worst of COVID seemingly behind the U.S. due to widespread uptake of safe and effective vaccines, economic demand and mobility are approximating pre-pandemic levels.

There is some limited evidence that California’s solar “curtailment” problem is receding on battery deployment. Curtailment, or the involuntary reduction of output of solar or wind generation due to system oversupply, could restrict renewables penetration. Indeed, most renewables and electricity experts continue to warn that solar penetration will face hard

U.S. ethane markets have evolved from being “ethane short” pre-2012 to “ethane long,” owing to the success of the U.S. shale revolution. Successful shale drilling started in gas-rich basins such as the Barnett and the Haynesville, quickly spread to NGL-rich gas drilling in the Appalachian basin, and by 2012, U.S.

Barring an exogenous event, such as the development of a new COVID-19 variant, a pipeline hack, an armed conflict, etc, world oil markets will likely be characterized by low volatility and relatively stable prices for the rest of 2021. While world crude demand is rising on vaccination successes, crude supply