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Natural gas prices won’t stay as low as they have been for as long as some expect, provided the industry gets a normal 2012-2013 winter heating season and the producer and market response to cheap gas continues, ICF International Vice President Kevin Petak said during one of the firm’s regular industry briefings Tuesday.

Exploration and production companies have heeded the call to improve transparency and institute better practices, but there’s more to do to address the concerns of stakeholders in the shale plays, a Range Resources Corp. executive said last week.

The Cana-Woodford, Eagle Ford and Bakken/Sanish/Three Forks plays continued to lead the activity growth in unconventional fields over the last year as oil and gas producers put more weight on liquids-rich shales to take advantage of higher commodity prices found in oil and natural gas liquids. Conversely, some of the nation’s dry gas shales have seen the largest drilling activity declines as natural gas prices remain below $4/MMBtu for much of the country.

Fayetteville Shale pioneer Southwestern Energy Co. has been branching out to Appalachia’s Marcellus Shale; to New Brunswick, Canada; and to the Lower Smackover Brown Dense formation, an unconventional oil reservoir in southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana. Right now company executives are most enthusiastic about the latter, which Southwestern has been working on for more than two years.

Driven by sustained intensity in the U.S. onshore and a slow recovery in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), the domestic rig count should average 1,850 in 2011, which would be 20% higher than in 2010, Baker Hughes Inc. said Monday.

Howard Energy Partners (HEP) announced it has acquired Texas Pipeline LLC and Bottom Line Services LLC for $76 million. Two firms — Crosstex Energy LP and Quanta Services Inc. — each provided $35 million in initial funding in exchange for about a 35% share of San Antonio-based HEP. Texas Pipeline operates 250 miles of gathering lines in the Eagle Ford and Pearsall shale plays. Bottom Line has built more than 500 miles of pipeline and installed more than 50 midstream facilities in the Eagle Ford.

Continuing the downward momentum from the previous week (see Shale Daily, April 11), the number of rigs drilling for oil and gas in U.S. unconventional plays dropped by another 1% for the week ending April 15, according to NGI’s Shale Daily Unconventional Rig Count.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has not provided assurances that fees won’t be assessed on nonproducing leases being held up by the federal government, said the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Legend Natural Gas IV LP stepped forward Thursday as the buyer of Range Resources Corp. Barnett Shale assets. Legend said it had struck two deals totaling $1 billion, one of them with Range in the Barnett of North Texas.