RBN ENERGY: Making Sense of Markets In Style

Russell ‘Rusty’ Braziel is one of the most respected authorities in the field of energy markets and fundamentals analysis, and it is therefore only fitting that he would lend his name to such a formidable network of accomplished energy professionals incorporating the foremost experts in various aspects of the U.S. energy industry.

 “We strive to be the most engaging and pertinent source of energy market information for those seeking an understanding of the industry,” says Houston-based RBN (Rust Braziel’s Network), focusing on North American energy markets with a globe-spanning team of networkers.

“We differentiate our work by explaining the market’s most current and important issues in understandable terms, making sense of complicated topics and providing insights for our customers in a manner that’s engaging.” RBN’s broad range of consulting services across the natural gas, crude oil, condensate and natural gas liquid markets are geared toward helping clients understand, formulate and implement strategies to help them navigate and profit from the rapid changes in each of these sectors.

CUSTOM CONSULTING

RBN’s extensive familiarity with this array of U.S. markets allows it to compile and analyse fundamentals data extracted from its own comprehensive historical databases and information stores, the company explains. Data is then analysed using quantitative methods and models, before a commercial interpretation is accomplished by RBN’s senior executive team based on decades of practical and direct involvement in U.S. energy markets.

“RBN’s unique market position is a result of basic grounding in deep analytics and extensive fundamentals data, with an overlay of the world-class expertise embodied in our senior professionals, enabling us to be a trusted advisor to senior management.

“It has been RBN’s experience with multiple clients that RBN’s combination of deep, fundamentals-based analytics with outstanding communication and presentation approaches has provided genuinely valuable strategic input for major management decisions,” the company says.

Providing insightful analysis of energy markets in a way that eschews the dry, dull – in RBN’s words, “mind-numbing” – approach of yore is the company and its founder’s mission, creating deep understanding for clients in style and harking back to Braziel’s 20 years as a rock musician. Data, numbers, complex information – all key, agrees RBN. The difference here is as crucial as the reliability, relevance and clarity of its coverage of energy markets are, equally important are the camaraderie and personal relationships the energy markets are built on.

“Our network of energy pros and subject matter experts are integral to our mission of making RBN’s analytics reflective of what’s actually going on, rather than just what one might glean from the numbers alone,” Braziel’s outfit says of its virtuosic team. “That sort of market intelligence only comes by having boots on the ground – insiders who know the market’s nuances and what pitfalls to watch out for.”

A custom consulting approach that blends RBN’s deep, fundamentals-based analytics with peerless communication and presentation approaches has provided swathes of clients with genuinely valuable strategic input for major management decisions. Recent engagements have included assisting a major Marcellus/Utica natural gas producer in assessing the impact of the start up of Rover and Nexus on the natural gas supply/demand balance in the upper Midwest, requiring RBN to complete a flow analysis of all the major pipelines feeding the region as well as those from the Rockies and the Permian basin.

Another entailed developing an in depth understanding of the Cushing, OK, complex, while one of the most significant focused on assisting a major LNG terminal developer in the inner workings of the current and projected Gulf Coast natural gas supply and demand and pipeline infrastructure, RBN details, of its ever-shifting and growing skillset. “Our network is constantly expanding. As our consulting and analytics practice evolves, we inevitably cross paths with industry vets with deep understanding of their fields.”

SCHOOL OF ENERGY

While RBN has clearly grown and expanded its offerings immeasurably since inception, its overarching mission has remained unwavering: to get energy market analytics to a broad audience. “Reaching beyond just big companies that can afford expensive fees, we tailor our work to inform everyone who needs to know what is going on in energy markets,” RBN says, whose free daily blog, analysing the most significant topics in energy markets in a characteristically easily digestible style, is now received by tens of thousands of energy professionals every day, and has produced a searchable reference library for those who wish to understand how the markets reached their current points. 

Through its publications, in the consulting context, via client-specific reports and seminars, RBN is famed as a leading educator in all those many areas where it boasts substantive expertise. RBN has gone a step further and incited a highly regarded School of Energy, a unique offering in the form of a genuine classroom situation for students to glean the fundamentals of the natural gas, crude oil and NGL markets.

Canada’s energy sector is pivotal in North America, as the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion (TMX) boosts crude oil exports and growing natural gas production fuels LNG export potential to Asia. August’s Calgary School of Energy date was a sellout, as RBN set out to unpack how these developments are occurring as evolving geopolitics and potential tariffs challenge the integrated U.S.-Canada energy market and create both opportunities and uncertainties for two energy powerhouses.

“The program is built on RBN’s proven methods,” the company states of its detailed, digestible content, available as a video streaming-based ‘Encore’ for those who missed out in person. “The curriculum progresses from the foundations of interconnected markets and production economics to crude oil supply, exports, and pricing; refining margins and renewable dynamics; natural gas fundamentals, LNG development, and pipeline flows; and NGL production, processing, and petrochemical economics.”

“Each session connects fundamentals to real-world infrastructure and pricing mechanics, equipping you with the perspective and tools to interpret market shifts and evaluate future scenarios,” RBN concludes, as it continues about its mission to allow more and more of us to master and make sense of the complexities of energy markets.