Houston — US Gulf Coast ethane prices continued to climb Thursday to a six-year high, nearing 50 cents/gal.
September non-LST ethane, reflecting prices at the Enterprise NGL fractionation and storage in Mont Belvieu, Texas, rose 3.125 cents to 47.75 cents/gal, up 1.75 cents from early trading.
It was last assessed higher on April 30, 2012, at 50 cents/gal.
Sources said midstream companies were actively buying ethane this week.
One source attributed ethane's strength to increasing rejection tightening the purity ethane market.
"At high frac fees everyone is basically going to high ethane rejection," a market source said.
Others suggested that fractionator interruptions in Mont Belvieu, particularly a Lone Stars Fractionator 2 outage on Wednesday, had tightened the market.
An Energy Transfers spokeswoman confirmed the fractionator was down for a "brief period." Market sources said the unit resumed service by 3 am CDT Thursday.
