Output

Robust output from the nation’s shale plays and relatively mild winter weather continue to force analysts to trim their natural gas price forecasts, with Bentek Energy LLC on Tuesday saying it expects the market to set a new price floor of $1.94/Mcf this September.

As Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia battle it out for an ethane cracker, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) is touting the benefits of building such a facility at the other end of the Rust Belt.

The oil and gas industry in the Eagle Ford Shale is growing so much that it is helping to create “entire communities” in some areas of South Texas, according to Kevin Robins, general manager of Job News USA in San Antonio.

The current Congress is a do-nothing legislative body, while the Department of Energy (DOE) has stepped up its output in response to the uptick in applications being filed to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a result of the rapid development of shale natural gas in the United States, federal energy officials said Monday.

The outlook for oil output from the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas is strong enough to cause analysts at Wood Mackenzie to predict that it will rival the Bakken Shale by 2015 as North America’s leading tight-oil producer.

Setbacks in several production regions, including the Bakken Shale, resulted in an overall decline in Hess Corp.’s 2Q2011 daily output, but those setbacks were mostly short-term, and the company was able to post a 62% earnings increase compared with 2Q2010.

A subsidiary of DTE Energy Co. has signed a long-term agreement with a unit of Southwestern Energy Co. to build and operate a natural gas gathering system to carry output from the producer’s Marcellus Shale operations to Millennium Pipeline Co. in Broome County, NY, and Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. in Susquehanna County, PA.

South Korea’s state-run Korea Gas Corp. (KOGAS), the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) buyer, is joining the Cordova Embayment natural gas project in British Columbia.

The natural gas liquids (NGL) in shale gas offer the United States a “tremendous opportunity” to strengthen manufacturing, boost economic output and create jobs, according to a report by the American Chemistry Council (ACC).