Paula Gant of the American Gas Association (AGA) has been tapped effective Sept. 9 as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oil and Natural Gas within the U.S. Department of Energy‘s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy (OFE). Gant is to report to Acting Assistant Secretary for Fossil Fuels Christopher Smith, who among other things is the Obama administration’s point man for gas export permits. Environmental Defense Fund chief counsel Mark Brownstein said Gant “fully understands that we cannot have a secure energy future if we do not protect the environment.” Gant spent seven years working on federal and state regulatory policy for natural gas issues at the AGA, a national trade group representing gas utilities and their customers, mostly as senior vice president for policy and planning. She began her career working for Duke Energy Corp., focusing on electric power generation and gas distribution in the Americas, Europe and Australia. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in Economics from McNeese State University and a doctorate in economics from Auburn University. Julio Friedmann, whose experience at the Lawrence Livermore National Labs is in carbon capture, utilization and sequestration and fossil energy conversion, also is joining OFE as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Clean Coal.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp.‘s M. Chris Doyle, formerly in charge of the Appalachian region, andMikell J. “Jason” Pigott, who had run the Southern Division, have left the company to join their former Anadarko colleague, Doug Lawler, who took over in June as CEO of Chesapeake Energy Corp. Doyle was named senior vice president of Chesapeake’s Northern Division, while Pigott was tapped as senior vice president of the Southern Division. The new executives fill some of the roles that had been held by Chesapeake COO Steve Dixon, who was fired in mid-August along with operations executives Jeff Fisher and Steve Miller, and human resources chief Martha Burger(see NGI, Aug. 26). A source told NGI that Doyle and Pigott arrived two days after the fired executives were gone.

Consol Energy Inc. COO Randy Albert is the new chairman of the Marcellus Shale Coalition(MSC), taking the helm from David Spigelmyer until the current term ends in late November, according to MSC spokesman Travis Windle. Albert was first elected to MSC’s executive committee in early 2011. Spigelmyer was elected MSC chairman later the same year and was re-elected in 2012 (see NGI, Nov. 21, 2011). He was a vice president at Chesapeake Energy Corp., but left the company recently, prompting his replacement as chairman of MSC, Windle said. It was the second change in MSC’s leadership this summer. In July Kathryn Klaber, who had helmed the industry-led MSC as CEO for almost four years, said she was stepping down (see NGI, July 29). Klaber, who was selected to lead the newly formed organization in 2009, was expected to help in the transition. A new CEO has yet to be named.