U.S. butane exports reached a new record in 2024
The United States is exporting record volumes of normal butane as global demand for liquefied petroleum gases (LPG) surges. U.S. normal butane exports averaged nearly 500,000 barrels per day (b/d) in 2024, a 12% increase from the previous year, and have increased every year since 2006.
Butane is used residentially and commercially as a fuel, primarily for cooking. It’s also used as a gasoline blendstock during the winter and as a base chemical to make rubbers and plastics. Butane can also be converted to isobutane through isomerization, a key process for producing high octane gasoline components.
Butane is similar to propane; both are considered LPGs. LPGs are byproducts of natural gas processing and crude oil refining. U.S. LPG production has grown rapidly with the increase in natural gas production, especially in liquids-rich regions such as the Eagle Ford in Texas and the Marcellus and Utica in the Northeast. Echoing trends in the propane market, higher production of butane has led to lower prices in the United States relative to global benchmarks in East Asia and the Middle East, increasing global demand for U.S. butane.
The United States is the largest butane exporter in the world, with most exports bound for Asia and Africa. Butane has a higher boiling point than propane, so butane is less expensive to store and transport in warmer climates than propane. In 2024, 41% of U.S. butane exports went to Asia and 36% went to Africa. The top Asian importers were Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea, while Morocco and Egypt took in the most U.S. butane in Africa. These five countries account for more than half of the United States’ butane exports.
Generally, butane demand has grown along with petrochemical demand. However, in many developing markets, governments have subsidized butane as a replacement for other fuels, such as wood or charcoal, because it is a cleaner indoor burning fuel for uses such as cooking or heating. Morocco, for example, has subsidized butane since the 1940s (although the government started phasing subsidies out in April 2024). Indonesia and India also have LPG subsidies in place.
Low U.S. butane spot prices relative to other global benchmark spot prices led to a consistently wide price spread throughout 2023 and 2024, incentivizing more butane shipments from the United States than from other countries. However, the U.S. Gulf Coast butane’s discount to East Asia and Saudi Arabia decreased at the end of 2024, after butane prices rose in the United States at a faster rate than in other regions. Despite the decreasing price spread in the second half of 2024, U.S. exports remained high, averaging 12% more than the same period in 2023.
Principal contributor: Josh Eiermann
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