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Although Bakken Shale oil and natural gas prices in North Dakota have begun to recover, production continues to plummet at a historic pace, according to Department of Mineral Resources director Lynn Helms.

Enbridge Inc. has won the second round of its legal battle against fossil fuel foes to keep its 540,000 b/d oil Line 5 across the Straits of Mackinac between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.

Following last Friday’s sell-off, natural gas futures gave up further ground Monday on modestly cooler weather forecasts and lingering concerns about the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on industrial energy demand. Persistently low liquefied natural gas (LNG) volumes also continued to weigh on markets.

The beleaguered Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), one of the last major greenfield projects pending to move natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shales, is almost at the finish line, but more delays and cost overruns are likely, according to the operator.

Editor’s Note: NGI’s Mexico Gas Price Index, a leader tracking Mexico natural gas market reform, is offering the following question-and-answer (Q&A) column as part of a regular interview series with experts in the Mexican natural gas market.

Natural gas futures tumbled Friday as markets absorbed forecasts for cooler weather, concerns about bloated inventories and declining liquefied natural gas (LNG) volumes. The July Nymex contract settled at $1.731/MMBtu, down 8.2 cents day/day. August fell 8.5 cents to $1.815.

Cooler near-term weather patterns in key regions and a storage injection that showed still-robust surpluses weighed on weekly spot gas prices for the June 8-12 period. NGI’s Weekly Spot Gas National Avg. declined 4.0 cents to $1.570.

Appalachia pure-play CNX Resources Corp. plans to increase some of its previously curtailed natural gas production beginning in July, with additional adjustments to be made as conditions warrant.

Natural gas futures advanced Thursday after the latest storage report met expectations and forecasts continued to call for more June heat. However, demand concerns lingered as markets absorbed an economic outlook that pointed to protracted fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. The July Nymex contract settled at $1.813/MMBtu, up 3.3 cents day/day. August rose 3.0 cents to $1.900.