Global Market Analysis
No Free Flow: Gas, Power, Freight, and the Fight to Capture the Spread
Key Findings
- General Thoughts: Waha’s discount reflects trapped Permian gas value, but lower crude, new takeaway, and rising demand could shift more of the upside to pipeline owners and firm-capacity holders than to end users.
- Supply Chain/Commodities: Aluminum’s rally is testing which buyers truly control delivered cost, not just metal exposure, as power scarcity, trade friction, and financing pressure reset margins across markets.
- Energy/Upstream: Flat 2026 US power-sector gas burn versus 2025 masks rising reliability value as regional deliverability, AI load, electrified industry, renewables, and pipeline limits reshape power risk.
- Sustainability/Energy Transition: AI power scarcity is turning clean-air systems into pricing leverage as gas turbines, permits, catalyst service, uptime risk, and qualification history decide usable capacity.
- Downstream/Other Chemicals: Freight volatility is separating margins earned through durable value from those protected by slow qualification, limited alternatives, and unfinished customer redesign.
Exhibit 1: Waha’s Discount Is the Prize for Access Builders, Not a Promise to Consumers.
Source: C-MACC Estimates, May 2026
See the PDF below for all charts, tables, and diagrams
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