Expand curtailing some production ‘in direct acknowledgement that the market is weakening’

Oil & Gas Journal · Geert De Lombaerde · 2026-10-28 00:00 UTC

After a quarter in which their teams turned in line 59 wells, executives plan to be patient and wait for prices to rise.

Expand Energy Corp., Spring, Tex., pulled back on some production during the third quarter, including by dropping a rig in Northeast Appalachia and a completion crew in the Haynesville, because of weaker prices for natural gas. Executives on Oct. 28 told analysts and investors that they’re prepared to curtail more work late this year and into 2027.

“As we’ve come into the fourth quarter, we’ve ended up reducing some of our activity,” chief operating officer Josh Viets said on a conference call following the release of Expand’s third-quarter results. “That activity reduction, moving from around 12 rigs down to 10, is in direct acknowledgement that the market is weakening.”

Viets was responding to a question from JPMorgan analyst Arun Jayaram, who neatly summed up the factors contributing to soft natural gas prices even though demand growth has been solid. The environment next year could be affected by Super El Niño weather patterns, more supply being transported out of the Permian basin and several LNG infrastructure owners being “a little bit more levered to the back end of the year.”

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