A drilling surge in America’s hottest oil play may prove to be a pitfall for natural gas bulls. As explorers extract crude from the Permian shale in West Texas, they’re also producing gas. A jump in the number of rigs operating in the basin is adding to the so-called fracklog, or the number of drilled wells that are waiting to be connected. That’s a sign that gas output from the region will jump by about 25 percent over the next year, threatening to send prices below $2 per million British thermal units, according to Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. Gas is already this year’s worst performer among major commodities, and the prospect of a torrent of supply from the Permian means 2018 may not be much brighter for gas bulls. Output from the basin would augment production from the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, which […]