Pricing

Natural gas prices could strengthen over the next 18 months to two years, but there are several reasons why a near-term pricing “pause” is likely, Credit Suisse analysts said last week.

Natural gas prices could strengthen over the next 18 months to two years, but there are several reasons why a near-term pricing “pause” is likely, Credit Suisse analysts said Wednesday.

Baker Hughes Inc., the industry’s third-largest oilfield services provider, said Friday the slump in U.S. natural gas activity weighed heavily on its latest quarterly profits. However, the No. 1 oilfield services provider, Schlumberger Ltd., managed to avoid the carnage in North America’s onshore by accelerating activity overseas.

Encana Corp. plans to continue to keep its eye on the “highest-return plays” in North America, which for the near term means more liquids and oil development and no natural gas drilling, CEO Randy Eresman said Wednesday.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. has been downgraded again by Fitch Ratings, and on Monday two proxy services recommended against reelecting two directors at the annual meeting in June.

Dry natural gas drilling in North America’s onshore, once a big calling for Houston-based Apache Corp., is off the to-do list until pricing improves, but with 60 rigs running in the U.S. onshore today — 58 targeting liquids targets — “we’ve got a very active drilling program going on right now, the most active we’ve been in some time in North America,” said CEO G. Steven Farris.

Producers in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas are having to take the bad with the good. The good: abundant oil and liquids-rich gas production in an era of very low dry gas prices. The bad: a dearth of infrastructure to handle the play’s robust output.

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P) has revised its natural gas pricing assumptions downward for 2012 and 2013 and added its oil and natural gas price assumptions for 2014.

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P) has revised its natural gas pricing assumptions downward for 2012 and 2013 and added its oil and natural gas price assumptions for 2014.