Victims of their own success

Shale-gas drillers are struggling to cope with the cheap prices brought by their onslaught of supply

Production continues to outstrip demand, despite a jump in the use of gas in the power sector at the expense of coal. Prices remain low, with little sign of recovery. The US natural gas sector is struggling to maintain momentum. In the short term, hot weather and a surge in power demand for air conditioning could be producers’ best hope. But, in the longer term, they will be looking to a spate of new processing facilities based on cheap gas feedstock, scheduled to come on stream in the next couple of years, and the advent of US LNG exports to provide support for the market. Fast growth in the US economy would help too. While US gas production continued to grow modestly over the past year, th