Looking into our crystal ball is always tough, clouded with hundreds of what-ifs. But certain themes have emerged for 2013. Based on announced spending plans for E&P companies, and factoring in projections for commodity prices, it looks like the New Year will bring more of the same.

By that we mean a fairly flat U.S. rig count, and natural gas prices floating around or even below $4 per thousand cubic feet. We also expect political turmoil in Washington over the deficit—and whether the oil industry will be forced to give up some tax deductions such as those for IDCs (intangible drilling costs).

Bernstein Research is calling for North American E&P spending to decline 2% this year as the growth rate for spending has steadily slowed from 2010 through 2012 (with fourth-quarter 2012 the low point, they say, followed by a slight uptick throughout 2013). International and offshore spending growth rates will rise and remain the bright spots for the year.

“Assuming $4.25 gas, flat oil prices and lower capital raises, E&P capacity to spend will be up 10% in 2013 and actual spending should rise by 5% by 4Q13,” they say, thinking natural gas prices will inch up by then.

The analysts concede that summing up North American budgets is essentially “fruitless” though, because companies revise their drilling plans quarter by quarter based on actual cash flow.

A Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. report says that drilling-rig efficiencies such as pad drilling, and lower service costs, will tilt the playing field in favor of operators, allowing them to do more with less capital—always welcome if gas is below $4.

We also know this is going to be the year we fight over natural gas supply.

More than a dozen potential exporters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) have applied to export as much as 28 billion cubic feet a day. We now produce about 73 Bcf a day.

Meanwhile, U.S. manufacturers object to the prospect of exports, counting on cheaper gas feedstock to pull off their renaissance. The question becomes which path creates the most jobs and adds more to our GDP?

This month the Department of Energy will be reviewing a study on LNG exports it commissioned from NERA Economic Consulting. After analyzing 63 scenarios, NERA concluded exports would be good for the overall economy in all scenarios, but it warned that gas prices would indeed rise for end users by as much as $1 per Mcf.

The DOE also will rule later this year on who will be allowed to export LNG and in what quantities. Nothing much will happen yet to move actual molecules—that’s several years down the road.

It’s ironic—low gas prices here are a boon to the proposed manufacturing plants that use gas. Those same low prices encourage producers to drill for oil instead (eventually threatening supply) or, to export the stuff abroad where gas commands two to three times as much.

“Industry has announced over 100 capital investments representing over $90 billion in spending and millions of new jobs, predicated on abundant and affordable natural gas…,” said Dow Chemical Co. chairman and chief executive officer Andrew N. Liveris at press time. Dow has announced some $4 billion of new chemical plants to take advantage of low-priced gas.

Liveris and other manufacturers slammed NERA’s report. He said it was flawed, misleading and failed to take into account the surge in manufacturing that U.S. natural gas could support. Exporting LNG creates jobs, but creating jobs on the factory floor ripples through the economy with far more impact.

Another theme for 2013 is that gas production will continue to climb as more wells are hooked up, with the decline in production from a lower gas rig count just now starting to be recorded in the Haynesville.

A recent Barclays’ analyst report says, “…strong growth of associated gas, debottlenecking, and the backlog of drilled-but-uncompleted wells that carried Lower 48 dry-gas output higher in 2012 will continue to do so in 2013.” The report indicates coal displacement should be about the same this year as in 2012. “This makes room for gas prices to recover from this year’s levels, but only modestly. We expect natural gas prices to average $3.70 per MMBtu in 2013.”

In September, Lower 48 production rose to 73.1 Bcf day, largely thanks to the Marcellus reaching 8.5 Bcf a day as more wells get hooked up to new gathering lines and more compression is installed.

Standard & Poor’s also sees gas below $4 per thousand in 2013, unless something in the supply-demand balance changes dramatically. The Energy Information Administration at press time said the U.S. becomes a net exporter earlier than it estimated a year ago. “Because quickly rising natural gas production outpaces domestic consumption, the U.S. will become a net exporter of liquefied natural gas in 2016 and a net exporter of total natural gas (including via pipelines) in 2020,” according to the EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2013, released in early December.