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Propane inventories built 2.1M/bbls for the week ending May 29, 2026.
Today's totals were markedly different from last week in more ways than one.
First off, last week saw a 400K/bbls draw. That was on the back of the largest weekly reported export total on record of 2.625M/bpd, which surpassed the previous all-time high of 2.335M/bpd.
Exports were off sharply this week at 1.649M/bpd, or a drop of nearly 1M/bpd. The irony is rich; one week after obliterating the previous all-time high, exports fell to one of their five-lowest weekly reported levels from the past year.
Last week, on the heels of that massive and all-time record export total, I wrote the following: "I am skeptical of this total, as are others in the industry...I am not even certain if there is enough export capacity in the Gulf to lead to 2.625M/bpd of exports, so this will be something to track in the coming weeks to see if we see some type of correction."
Then I followed the Wednesday EIA report newsletter up with a follow up later last week where we took a dive into the changing export picture in the US, which you can read here.
The gist is that a considerable amount of new (and in some instances, flex) export capacity has come online as of late...and there is more planned. Here is how some of that looks, with the caveat being I do not work for these companies and am using publicly available information:
The Energy Transfer Nederland terminal operated at 96% ethane utilization in its early weeks, so much of that 250 Mb/d has been flowing ethane, not propane — though it can swing quickly given market incentives. Enterprise's Neches River Phase 2 flex train can load up to 36M/bpd of propane or 180M/bpd ethane, or a combination of the two. With the Straight of Hormuz disruption due to America's war against Iran, the market pull is clearly toward propane right now.
Then there is also Enterprise's EHT expansion, which will add another 300 Mb/d of propane/butane export capacity, with service expected by the end of 2026.
All told, there is perhaps an additional +600M/bpd of propane capacity online right now that wasn't online a year ago, with another potential 300M/bpd coming online by the end of the year. That's nearly 1M/bpd of additional propane export takeaway capacity that our industry has to process and evaluate. The availability of VLGC's will also play a part in how much propane can leave the Gulf, so do not assume that +2.5M/bpd propane exports will become the norm just yet.
Again, not all of these facilities will be loading propane only at all times, but considering we just saw a 1M/bpd drop in export totals from one week to the next (and making an unsafe assumption that this was not some type of inventory correction), propane exports will be taking an even larger level of importance in our industry for the foreseeable future.
Jon Miller and Chris Cox will record a new Propane Buzzcast later this week to discuss this emerging development.