The U.S. Department of Energy‘s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy has appointed Neelesh Nerurkar deputy assistant secretary for oil and natural gas. He will administer oil and gas programs, including research and development, analysis and natural gas regulation. Nerurkar comes to DOE from the U.S. Department of State‘s Bureau of Energy Resources, where he served as a senior adviser. He has also served at the National Economic Council and National Security Council, where he developed and coordinated U.S. energy policy to advance economic, climate and foreign policy goals. In addition, Nerurkar formerly served as an energy policy specialist with the Congressional Research Service and at the Energy Information Administration. Prior, he was an economist with BP plc.

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Norman Bay has appointed Lawrence Brenner as senior administrative law judge (ALJ). Brenner previously had served as FERC’s deputy chief ALJ. Since 2007, Brenner served on the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC), chaired the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Commission and was PSC’s representative and president of the Organization of PJM States. Brenner was also president of the Mid-Atlantic Conference of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, chaired the Mid-Atlantic Distributed Resources Initiative, and was an ALJ for the U.S. Department of Labor and an administrative judge for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He received his juris doctor degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo and is admitted to practice law in Maryland, the District of Columbia and New York.

Consol Energy Inc. has announced that Chief Commercial Officer James C. Grech has retired, part of a larger “corporate reorganization” effort. In February, the company sold its Buchanan mine and associated metallurgical coal assets for $420 million (see Shale Daily, Feb. 29). With Grech’s retirement, CNX Coal Resources LP, which operates the Pennsylvania coal assets, will manage all human resources, land, marketing and external communications matters. Consol has coalbed methane operations on some of the properties it sold, but it retained the right to extract and sell that gas.