Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today in a requiem for natural gas profitability.  After a long and debilitating illness, conditions worsened over the last week as vital signs fell to a 10-year, sub-$3 low.

Commodity profitability expired peacefully midweek.

Left to cherish the life of natural gas profitability are a bereaved group of international joint venture partners, U.S. publicly held, shale-focused independents, and the well stimulation industry, which faces the double tragedy of a flood of onrushing capacity in a market that will need fewer completion stages by the ...