PLATTS - Russia is committed to its OPEC pact with Saudi Arabia and will continue supplying Europe energy despite tensions with the West after US-led strikes on Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime, said Vladimir Putin's spokesman.

EIA - Crude oil production from the major US onshore regions is forecast to increase 125,000 b/d month-over-month in May from 6,871 to 6,996 thousand barrels/day , gas production to increase 1,078 million cubic feet/day from 65,829 to 66,907 million cubic feet/day .

EIA - U.S. dry natural gas production will increase through 2050 across a wide variety of alternative assumptions about the future. In the Reference case, which is based on current laws and regulations, production grows 59% from 2017 to 2050, starting at 73.6 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2017 and reaching 118 Bcf/d in 2050.

PLATTS - The EU's main challenge is in natural gas, as 76% of the EU's gas imports came from just Norway and Russia in 2016,

BLOOMBERG - Gas output will expand by 24 billion cubic feet, or 32 percent, through 2025 from last year, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates. To support that growth, the country’s gas industry needs to spend $170 billion over the next seven years on pipelines, compressor stations, export terminals and other related infrastructure, said Meg Gentle, chief executive officer of gas exporter Tellurian Inc.

BAKER HUGHES A GE - U.S. Rig Count is up 5 rigs from last week to 1,008, with oil rigs up 7 to 815, gas rigs down 2 to 192, and miscellaneous rigs unchanged at 1. Canada Rig Count is down 9 rigs from last week to 102, with oil rigs down 7 to 41 and gas rigs down 2 to 61.

PLATTS - "It cannot be the case that Nord Steam 2 means that Ukraine no longer has any significance in transiting [Russian] gas," Merkel said after a meeting with Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko.

GAZPROM - Nord Stream 2 AG received the second permit required for the construction and operation of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the Finnish Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), thereby completing the permitting procedure in Finland.

REUTERS - GAIL renegotiated the terms of a long-term 2.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) liquefied natural gas (LNG) purchase deal with Russia’s Gazprom in January.

EIA - Two out of three of EIA’s measures of natural gas production in the United States set records in 2017. U.S. natural gas production measured as gross withdrawals reached 90.9 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2017, the highest volume on record according to EIA’s Monthly Crude Oil, Lease Condensate, and Natural Gas Production Report. U.S. natural gas production measured as marketed natural gas production also reached a new high, but dry natural gas production did not exceed 2015 levels.