Ahead

Ahead of the annual shareholder meeting on Friday, Chesapeake Energy Corp. acquiesced to demands of major shareholder groups and Carl Icahn, who now holds 7.8% of the stock, and said four existing independent directors would resign from the board. The company also has put up for sale 337,481 net acres in its prized Utica/Point Pleasant Shale, which would give it less than one million acres in the play.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett said development of the Marcellus Shale was “good for the entire state” but conceded that several challenges lay ahead, in part because natural gas prices remain less than $3/Mcf.

Creole Trail Pipeline Co. LP has asked FERC for the go-ahead to modify its system to accommodate the delivery of raw gas to a liquefaction project that Cheniere Energy affiliates Sabine Pass LNG and Sabine Pass Liquefaction are planning to build in Cameron Parish, LA.

Baker Hughes Inc. CEO Martin Craighead said Tuesday the company sees a big expansion of oilfield services ahead in the Permian Basin, of late the mecca for operators looking for liquids-rich reserves in the old guard oil and gas formations.

A district court judge in Texas has ruled that oil and natural gas production equipment used “below ground” is exempt from state sales taxes on extraction equipment.

Physical prices for the long weekend and Monday tumbled in Thursday trading as buyers were reluctant to make purchases ahead of anticipated reduced industrial load. Midwest points showed relative strength, but Northeast locations recorded healthy drops as weather conditions were expected to remain at seasonal levels.

Backers of the Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas (LNG) import-export project along the south-central Oregon coast at Coos Bay are moving ahead with necessary federal regulatory filings in March while monitoring the decline in U.S. natural gas prices and what that will mean for both domestic and global markets.

Drillers in northeastern Pennsylvania — the dry gas area of the Marcellus Shale — in the months ahead will stomp on the brakes with both feet and jam the dry gas freight train into reverse, according to an analysis by Bentek Energy LLC. Even if they do, a bulging gas surplus will fester behind pipeline capacity constraints for years to come, the firm said.

Drillers in northeastern Pennsylvania — the dry gas area of the Marcellus Shale — in the months ahead will stomp on the brakes with both feet and jam the dry gas freight train into reverse, according to an analysis by Bentek Energy LLC. Even if they do, a bulging gas surplus will fester behind pipeline capacity constraints for years to come, the firm said.