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Industry executives who recently offered Oregon regulators an updated natural gas outlook for the Pacific Northwest said they see faint signs of potential added gas-fired industrial loads taking shape, but flat near-term demand projections nevertheless dominated their forecasts.

With solid second quarter results in the books, Encana Corp. is taking a look at its entire North American portfolio and has begun putting a “new emphasis on our portfolio of emerging liquids plays,” newly installed CEO Doug Suttles told investors last week.

Almost half of the drilling in the U.S. onshore now is being done on multi-well pads, further moving attention from the rig and well count and more to horizontal footage drilled and the number of fractured stages per well, Halliburton Co. CEO Dave Lesar said last week.

After gaining access earlier this year to a big bundle of onshore and offshore opportunities in the United States, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. now is reworking its strategy to relieve the cost burden and increase production, top executives said last week.

Kathryn Klaber, who has helmed the industry-led Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) as CEO for almost four years, is stepping down. She was selected to lead the newly formed organization in late 2009 and is expected to help in the transition over the next few months. “Pennsylvania is now producing nearly 10% of the nation’s natural gas,” Klaber said. “Our industry’s work has been described as ‘revolutionary’ and ‘game-changing.’ The work of the MSC, collaborating with public officials, has helped create the climate for growth of an industry that has delivered on its promises to create American jobs, increase our energy security, while holding safety and environmental performance as paramount.” The oil and gas industry over the past few years “has faced and collectively overcome a host of challenges,” said MSC Chair Dave Spigelmyer, who is Chesapeake Energy Corp. vice president of government affairs. “Katie’s results-oriented leadership and proven ability to identify and collaboratively tackle these challenges has brought incredible value to our industry.”

California regulators are facing increased scrutiny on their response to stepping up natural gas pipeline safety oversight following a 2010 explosion in San Bruno on a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) line.

Kansas state regulators have proposed a set of rules requiring oil and natural gas drilling companies to disclose chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking). A public hearing by the Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC) will he held Aug. 15 to review the draft rules as part of a 60-day public comment period now under way.

Goodrich Petroleum Corp. is buying a 66.7% working interest in producing assets and about 277,000 gross acres in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) for $26.7 million as it continues to build scale in the play and improve its drilling performance.

Large natural gas end-users, consumer advocates and environmentalists have raised a cry about exporting U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Asian and European markets, but one power generator executive wonders why no one is questioning increasing pipeline exports of gas to Mexico.