Commodities Focus

Increased focus on US shale plays has contributed to an sharp increase of natural gas and NGL production. With more natural gas liquids flooding the market, the price relationship between gas, NGLs and petrochemicals is tightening and, in some cases, reversing. Samantha Santa Maria, Platts managing...

Ng Bao Ying, Platts senior Asian petrochemicals editor and Vernon Lee, Platts petrochemicals editor, provide in-depth analysis on where benzene volumes have been flowing to in recent months, with the market in the midst of the longest open arbitrage window for Asian benzene cargoes to the US since...

Spring finally arrrived and the US natural gas markets have finally settled down. But storage injections are well behind the averages and there is a lot of gas to get into the tank after this winter's record pull. Gas Daily editors Rodney White, Chris Tremulis, TL Hamilton, and Jasmin Melvin take a...

Bob Fryklund, chief upstream strategist, IHS Energy, spoke with Platts web editor Elizabeth Bassett about challenges the energy industry will face in East Africa on the fourth day of the 45th Offshore Technology Conference. While countries like Mozambique have massive oil and gas reserves,...

Platts web editor Elizabeth Bassett spoke with Christopher Smith, principal deputy assistant secretary for fossil energy with the Department of Energy, at the Offshore Technology Conference. Smith was part of a panel on the second day of the conference, and he talked about what sort of R&D the...

Warm weather out West and continued below-average temperatures in Chicago and the East bolstered US natural gas prices as the May futures contract held its own to roll off the board at $4.79/MMBtu. Gas Daily editors Rodney White, Chris Tremulis, TL Hamilton, and Bill Holland discuss what's in store...

Platts petrochemicals editor Pavel Pavlov talks about what's been driving up the US ethylene market, where spot prices recently hit a 12-week high. Both planned and unplanned outages have been spurring prices upward, as has the continued outage of the Evangeline pipeline between Texas and...

Platts petrochemical editor Anna Ward talks to Platts petrochemical analyst Chris Ferrell about the current state of polyethylene markets in North America and market expectations that prices could eventually move lower. We welcome any feedback or suggestions for topics. Contact us at...

Gas Daily editor Jim Magill explains how the Haynesville Shale, once a hot property for natural gas drilling in the US, has fallen out of favor as producers turn their attention elsewhere. Liquids-rich and oil-rich plays are shifting rig counts out of the Haynesville, and gas prices will need to...

Platts' William Powell, managing editor for International Gas Report, recently attended the Gastech conference in South Korea, focusing on the main themes discussed, including the prospects for gas prices globally and how, if at all, developments in Ukraine will affect the global gas picture. We...