PetroReconcavo Nudges Brazilian Onshore Output Higher

January NYMEX is trading near $4.93/MMBtu this morning, down a fair margin from Friday’s $5.23 close as futures give back part of their hefty weather-driven gains. Today’s fundamental balances are still firmly in winter mode: production is at 105.1 Bcf/d after slipping from a weekend peak above 112 Bcf/d, while Canadian imports are 6.9 Bcf/d, putting total US supply at 112.3 Bcf/d. On the demand side, ResComm load remains the main driver at 48.9 Bcf/d with national temperatures still running roughly 6°F below normal, and powerburn is holding at 36.2 Bcf/d, keeping total demand elevated at 147.2 Bcf/d. The outlook does look warmer however, with the most severe cold now expected to stay in northwestern Canada and US cold more muted and focused on the Northeast, an adjustment that should limit freeze-off risks and is starting to be reflected in storage-path expectations, even as many traders still see January holding above the $5 handle barring a more decisive shift in forecasts.

Corpus Christi’s next growth leg is quietly getting bigger. Cheniere has asked FERC to lift the authorized output of its nine midscale trains under construction, taking total Corpus Christi Stage 3 capacity from about 752 Bcf/year to roughly 1,003 Bcf/year, an increase on the order of 250 Bcf/year, or about 0.7 Bcf/d, achieved through design optimizations and debottlenecking rather than new concrete and steel. Four of the trains are already online, with the remaining units slated for 2026, and the request comes on top of a broader US buildout that has seen roughly 60 million mt/year of liquefaction reach FID in 2025. Overall US LNG feedgas demand is hovering near record levels around 20.4 Bcf/d, with Corpus Christi itself pulling close to 3.4 Bcf/d, reinforcing the idea that export demand is now a structural pillar of the US gas balance and that each incremental uprate on the Gulf Coast hardens the floor under winter pricing.

Front-month WTI trades near $59.35/bbl this morning, a bit softer than Friday’s $60.08/bbl close as the market digests mixed demand signals and a steady stream of incremental supply stories. In Brazil, onshore independent PetroReconcavo posted its first month-on-month production increase in seven months, with November output edging up to about 25,100 boe/d on the back of water-reinjection work at the Tie field and a series of well workovers across its Bahia clusters. Bahia volumes rose roughly 2.7% from October, while the Potiguar cluster continued to trend lower amid equipment issues and slower-than-expected well stabilization. In global terms the barrels are small, but they highlight how smaller operators are working to slow decline in mature onshore basins, adding a bit of resilience on the margins even as the heavy lifting for seaborne supply still comes from larger offshore projects and the core OPEC+/non-OPEC producer group.