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Estimated U.S. energy consumption in coming decades doesn’t vary much among a series of long-term projections released Thursday by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), but the fuel mix indicated in those cases would differ, and natural gas is likely to consolidate and even grow its share of the market, the agency said.

Raymond James & Associates Inc. on Monday raised its 4Q2012 natural gas price assumptions by 75 cents and lifted the 2013 forecast by 50 cents, predicting 1Q2013 price “spikes to near $5.00/Mcf.”

Marathon Oil Corp., which began 2012 as a pure-play exploration and production (E&P) company, has its sights trained on two big shale plays in the United States: the Eagle Ford and the Bakken, company officials said Wednesday.

Continued growth in production of shale gas and recent discoveries in deep waters offshore is expected to increase domestic natural gas production through 2035 and will be reflected in the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) next Annual Energy Outlook, which is due out in December, according to EIA Administrator Richard Newell.

With Pennsylvania’s 2010 legislative session winding down, Gov. Ed Rendell on Friday asked leaders of the General Assembly to gather with him and energy industry leaders in Harrisburg Monday to work on a severance tax on gas produced from the state’s portion of the prolific Marcellus Shale play.

President Bush’s State of the Union address Tuesday night was notable more for what it didn’t say on energy policy — it failed to make any reference to domestic oil and natural gas drilling.

“We could call it ‘the blizzard that wasn’t,'” jested a marketerin reference to the Nor’easter that had been billed as the firstbig winter storm of the year in the Northeast but turned out to berelatively benign after all. It and other market factors werelosing their price-boosting punch Tuesday, with the result thatnearly all points ranged from flat to about 20 cents lower. Thestandout exception to the general market was a Southern Californiaborder plunge of more than $5.