Challenges

The Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (EHB) has denied the appeal of two environmental groups that have for years been challenging permits for six unconventional natural gas wells operated by Rex Energy Corp. near a school in Butler County.

With three natural gas transmission pipelines down and Aliso Canyon underground gas storage operations limited, an updated assessment of winter energy supplies issued Tuesday indicated the Southern California region faces greater uncertainty than a year ago, with gas curtailments to large industrial users more likely.

Range Resources Corp.has announced that CFO Roger S. Manny plans to retire in May after 14 years working on the company’s senior management team. The company has appointed Mark S. Scucchi, currently vice president of finance, to serve as his replacement. Scucchi joined Range in 2008 to work in corporate finance, treasury and planning. He previously worked in commercial and investment banking services at JPMorgan Securities Inc.

A Pennsylvania judge has ruled that an environmental organization’s lawsuit to stop Range Resources Corp. from drilling at a site in Washington County can go forward, putting the company’s plans there on hold.

Royal Dutch Shell plc’s investors may pay the most attention to quarterly results, but even disappointments can’t distract management from long-term projects to enrich the natural gas and oil portfolio, according to CFO Simon Henry.

A physician from northeast Pennsylvania who filed a federal lawsuit in 2012 challenging a state law that requires medical professionals to sign a confidentiality agreement to gain access to additives used in horizontal hydraulic fracturing has lost on appeal.

Natural gas from the still-blooming Marcellus Shale is but a pipeline ride away from the neediest demand center in the country: the Northeast. But between Marcellus and market are numerous municipal officials, landowners and environmentalists who are skeptical of — if not downright hostile to — pipeline development. Why?

Five of the biggest U.S. natural gas producers are collaborating with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to ask engineers and technology inventors to submit their best ideas for continuous methane detection at oil and natural gas operations.

It didn’t take long for Kathryn Klaber to seize the benefits of her four-year role as CEO of the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC), announcing just months after resigning the position that she would launch a consulting firm aimed at enhancing the business performance of energy companies and others with a stake in shale gas development.