Price

Physical gas prices overall were flat Wednesday with most price averages fluctuating within a couple of pennies. Even the typically volatile Northeast traded within 1-2 cents of Tuesday’s prices.

Natural gas liquids (NGL) account for a significant portion of what many international organizations refer to as “oil production” from the United States, according to analysts from the Brookings Institution.

Dry gas player Southwestern Energy Co. is having “success in a low gas-price environment,” not just surviving, said CEO Steve Mueller.

The price of domestic natural gas isn’t going to increase significantly any time soon, said Royal Dutch Shell plc CEO Peter Voser, but that didn’t stop the company from having its best fourth quarter since 2006.

Texas producers boosted crude oil production for the third straight year in 2012, lifting statewide output by nearly 100 million bbl to 604 million bbl, according to the year-end report issued by the economist who compiles the monthly Texas Petro Index.

Chimera Energy Corp., which had seen its stock price increase substantially this summer based on its claims of a deal with Mexico’s state-owned petroleum company, has since lost both its CEO and almost all of its stock value in the wake of concerns about the accuracy of many of the company’s statements.

With oil production booming in the Permian Basin of West Texas, projects are being developed to serve producers wanting to get their oil to Houston. But going west on a converted portion of Kinder Morgan’s El Paso Natural Gas (EPNG) system could one day be an option, too.

North America’ burgeoning natural gas supplies have advantages beyond price for exporting to the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) markets, according to a Houston-based consultant. And Mexico could end up being a key part of the puzzle.

In the current commodity price environment, the best thing about a natural gas rig might be that it can stop drilling for gas, move somewhere else and start drilling for oil. Put another way in a recent note by analysts at Goldman Sachs: “Where a rig is drilling is a more reliable indicator than its classification as a natural gas or oil rig in predicting if the well drilled will be a natural gas well or an oil well.”