Bcf/D

Natural gas production in the shale-rich “Other States” category was down 0.5% in April compared with the previous month, and total U.S. production of just over 2.60 Tcf in April pushed the total for the first four months of the year to 10.31 Tcf, a 4.7% increase from the same period in 2013, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Sales by more than two dozen leading natural gas marketers during the first three months of 2014 increased 0.61 Bcf/d (about 0.5%) compared with 1Q2013, a small rebound for a market that had been on a downward slope for nearly two years, according to NGI’s 1Q2014 Top North American Gas Marketers Ranking.

July natural gas is expected to open a penny lower Wednesday morning at $4.52 as traders see the bullish case losing momentum and technical signals deteriorate. Overnight oil markets firmed.

Total U.S. Natural Gas marketed production will grow by an average rate of 4.0% this year to 73 Bcf/d and 1.3% in 2015 to 73.97 Bcf/d, with Lower 48 onshore production increases — most coming from shale plays — more than offsetting declines from the Federal Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and Alaska, according to the Energy Information Administration’s latest Short-Term Energy Outlook.

Alberta will all but drop off the North American map as a merchant of natural gas to markets beyond its borders over the next 10 years, predicts the province’s supply development authority.

Pipeline exports of U.S. gas to Mexico doubled from 2009 to 2013, and they’re poised to double again from 2013 to 2018, driven by growing demand from Mexican industry and power generators and growing supply in the United States, according to the country’s energy ministry.

Canadian natural gas supplies have resumed growing regardless of whether producers want to keep on fueling the North American supply glut, the National Energy Board (NEB) said Tuesday.

Williams has brought into service two of five cryogenic processing trains at the Opal, WY, facility that have a combined processing capacity of 395 MMcf/d. Opal had been processing up to 1.1 Bcf/d and supplying up to 1 Bcf/d to interstate pipelines before a fire last week shuttered the facility.

A return to robust natural gas production growth from the Other States category — home to several shale-rich states — wasn’t enough to keep the U.S. production total from decreasing to 85.02 Bcf/d in February, down 0.18 Bcf/d compared with 85.20 Bcf/d in January, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).