Natural gas is drilled in Pennsylvania. U.S. natural-gas production hit its highest level ever over the winter even in the face of low prices, a conundrum at the heart of one of the year’s worst-suffering markets. Energy companies have responded to lower prices by cutting back drilling. But they are continuing to pump aggressively from their most productive wells, which, along with an unusually warm winter, has left the industry heading into spring with a supply glut and prices down by nearly a quarter this year. Average daily gas output in the continental U.S. set a record in February of 73.3 billion cubic feet, energy-market-data firm Platts Bentek said this week. That is up about 2% from January and adds pressure on prices that already were too low to make many wells worth drilling. Meanwhile, on Thursday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said gas producers began stockpiling during the […]