Haliburton CEO: "Don't Expect Natural-Gas Drilling Rebound in '13"

The soon-to-expire futures are trading down 1 cents at $ 3.43.
From Dow Jones via NASDAQ:

Natural-gas drilling is unlikely to drive activity this year but Halliburton isn't going to abandon natural-gas fields altogether, Chief Executive Dave Lesar told analysts during a conference call Friday.

Though the number of rigs drilling for natural gas appears to have stopped its freefall, Mr. Lesar said he doesn't expect natural-gas drilling to make a full recovery this year.

Without a rebound more significant than he expects to see, Mr. Lesar said the pressure-pumping market in the U.S. will remain oversupplied, which has kept margins low for Halliburton and other oilfield-services companies working in North America....MORE

There is a slight contango between the Feb's and March's: 3.431 to 3.446 with another 4 cents to the April's, 3.485.

Haliburton reported a slight beat (but down YoY) and is up 5.1% at $39.74.

The big fracker is not talking up the ace-in-the hole for the drillers: all the horizontal wells that have been fracked over the last few years have to be re-fracked every 3-6 years. Sort of an annuity for HAL; SLB; BHI et al.