Petroleum refinery outage in California highlights markets' quick price reaction

On February 18, an explosion and fire occurred at ExxonMobil's refinery in Torrance, California. The Torrance refinery, the third-largest refinery in Southern California, has about 20% of the region's fluid catalytic cracking capacity and is an important source of gasoline and distillate fuel oil supply for Southern California. More »

Rise in salt cavern storage capacity for natural gas offsets declines in other capacities

With natural gas storage at low levels in most of 2014 and production relatively high, minimal new natural gas storage capacity was built, except for salt facilities in the Producing region. Capacity in the East region of the United States fell slightly, resulting in relatively unchanged national total capacity. More »

Wind generation seasonal patterns vary across the United States

Wind plant generation performance varies throughout the year as a result of highly seasonal wind patterns. Nationally, wind plant performance tends to be highest during the spring and lowest during the mid- to late summer, while performance during the winter (November through February) is around the annual median. However, this pattern can vary considerably across regions, mostly based on local atmospheric and geographic conditions. More »

Large reduction in distillate fuel sulfur content has only minor effect on energy content

Distillate fuel oil supply consists of diesel fuel used in diesel engines and heating oil used in furnaces and boilers. Over the past 20 years, the EPA has regulated the amount of sulfur contained in diesel fuel to enable reductions in harmful emissions of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter from diesel engines. Since 2006, most distillate fuel has had less than 15 ppm of sulfur, compared to an average of 3,000 ppm in the 1990s. This has improved air quality with only a minor effect on the energy content of distillate fuel. More »

Higher RIN prices support continued ethanol blending despite lower gasoline prices

With the exception of two short periods in late 2013 and the first quarter of 2014, when winter-related logistical bottlenecks drove up ethanol prices, spot ethanol prices have consistently been lower than gasoline prices from December 2011 through October 2014. However, with the sharp decline in crude oil and gasoline prices in the latter months of 2014, gasoline spot prices fell below ethanol spot prices in early November. More »

Natural gas inventory exceeds five-year average for first time since November 2013

Working natural gas in storage has surpassed five-year average levels for the first time in more than a year. At 2,157 Bcf as of February 13, stocks are 58 Bcf greater than the five-year average. Recent extremely cold weather may result in high stock withdrawals for the week ending February 20, which could again push stocks below their five-year average. However, natural gas production in February and March that is forecast to average 5 Bcf/day above the year-ago level is likely to contribute to healthy inventories and moderate prices as the nation moves from winter into spring. More »

Wind generates more than 10% of Texas electricity in 2014

In 2014, more than 10% of the electricity used in the grid covering most of Texas came from wind generation, according to the grid's operator, ERCOT. Wind's share of the ERCOT generation mix grew from 6.2% in 2009 to 10.6% in 2014 as total electricity generation increased over the same period by 11.3%. The growth in wind generation is a result of new wind plants coming online and grid expansions that have allowed more wind power to flow through the system to consumers. More »

Energy efficiency improvements have largely offset effect of more, larger homes

The growth in residential energy use has slowed to below the rate of household growth, meaning that per-household energy consumption has decreased. Analysis of EIA's Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) conducted since 1980 shows how improvements in energy efficiency reduced energy intensity enough to offset more than 70% of the growth in both the number of households and the size of dwellings. More »

Proposed efficiency standard may eliminate noncondensing gas furnaces

Following a court challenge that caused a previous proposal to be sent back for further analysis, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a new proposed rulemaking to increase the minimum efficiency standards for gas furnaces for the first time since 1992. More »

Shale gas and tight oil are commercially produced in just four countries

The United States, Canada, China, and Argentina are currently the only four countries in the world that are producing commercial volumes of either natural gas from shale formations or crude oil from tight formations. The U.S. is by far the dominant producer of both shale gas and tight oil. More »

Saudi Arabia budget insulated from effects of lower oil prices

Saudi Arabia is the largest exporter of crude oil and other petroleum liquids in the world, and their oil exports accounted for 89% of the country's total revenue in 2014. The recent decline in global oil prices is decreasing the value of these exports, leading to a potential budget shortfall. In its 2015 budget, Saudi Arabia plans to spend about $230 billion, but expects to take in $190.7 billion in revenue resulting in an overall deficit of $38.6 billion. More »

EIA tracking tool shows light-sweet crude oil imports to Gulf Coast virtually eliminated

The increase in U.S. shale and tight crude oil production has resulted in a decrease of crude oil imports to the U.S. Gulf Coast area, particularly for light-sweet and light-sour crude types. These trends are visualized in EIA's crude import tracking tool, which allows for time-series analysis of crude oil imported to the United States. More »

Iraq was second-leading contributor to global oil supply growth during 2014

Despite some supply disruptions and security threats, Iraq was the second-leading contributor to global oil supply growth in 2014, behind only the United States. Iraq accounted for almost 60% of production growth among the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, although this growth was more than offset by production declines in other OPEC countries. More »

Midwest propane market more balanced than a year ago

Higher inventories, milder weather, and falling crude oil and natural gas prices have resulted in a Midwest propane market that so far this winter has not experienced the challenges faced last winter, when the combination of depleted inventories and high winter demand pushed propane prices to record highs. This winter, lower demand as a result of a less-severe winter has kept Midwest propane markets well-supplied. More »

Defense Department energy use falls to lowest level since at least 1975

Energy used by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) fell to 0.75 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) in fiscal year (FY) 2013, the lowest recorded level since at least FY 1975, the earliest available data from the U.S. Department of Energy's Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP). DoD accounts for most of the energy consumed by the federal government. More »

Energy consumption by U.S. government at lowest level since at least 1975

The U.S. federal government, with thousands of facilities and vehicles in locations across the United States and abroad, is one of the largest energy consumers in the world, but that consumption is declining. The Department of Energy's Federal Energy Management Program shows total delivered-to-site energy use by the federal government fell to 0.96 quadrillion Btu in FY 2013, the lowest since 1975, the earliest year for which data are available. More »

Increase in average gasoline prices ends 17-week streak of declining prices

EIA conducts a survey of gasoline prices each Monday, and yesterday's survey showed the U.S. average regular retail gasoline price increasing for the first time in 18 weeks. The steady decline in prices over the previous 17 weeks was the longest consecutive decrease in EIA's weekly survey since prices fell 14 cents per gallon over a 24-week period in 1995 More »

New England generation fuel mix changes likely as Vermont Yankee nuclear plant retires

On December 29, 2014, Entergy shut down its Vermont Yankee nuclear facility after 42 years in service. Vermont Yankee had a capacity of 604 megawatts (MW), generating nearly five million megawatthours (MWh) of electricity per year since 2010. As the fifth-largest source of generation in New England, Vermont Yankee accounted for 4% of New England's total electric generation and more than 70% of generation in Vermont. More »