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FERC Wednesday approved the requests of three western natural gas pipelines for temporary waivers of capacity-release regulations, clearing the way for the permanent release of off-system capacity held on the Wyoming Interstate Co. (WIC) pipeline to certain shippers.

Halcon Resources Corp. on Monday said it is acquiring a shelf of oil-weighted producing and undeveloped properties in the Williston Basin in a cash-and-equity transaction with Petro-Hunt LLC worth $1.45 billion.

Naturally occurring methane in New York water wells could serve as a baseline to measure the quality of the water supply if and when natural gas drilling is expanded and high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is allowed, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said in a new report. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to announce any day a decision about whether to allow more gas drilling to proceed.

Denver-based Antero Resources is unloading its Arkoma Basin assets and redeploying capital to Appalachian shale plays while Vanguard Natural Resources LLC, which is buying Antero’s mostly natural gas Arkoma assets for $445 million, is establishing a new operating area with the deal.

ProWater, a Sustainable Environmental Technologies Corp. (SET) subsidiary, said Wednesday it has started drilling a new saltwater disposal (SWD) well in North Dakota’s portion of the Bakken Shale and will test a new automated system to support shale oil drilling in the play.

Fifty-five investment organizations and institutional investors with nearly $1 trillion in assets under management are pushing for implementation of “best practices” for hydraulic fracturing (fracking), according to a trio of shareholder groups — Boston Common Asset Management, the Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN) and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) — which are spearheading the effort.

Dealing with an Eagle Ford gas flow that has turned out to be much more liquids-rich than expected, Regency Energy Partners LP announced Monday that it will expand its Edwards Lime gathering joint venture in the South Texas shale play to increase the system’s capacity by 90 MMcf/d to 160 MMcf/d, and provide for additional crude transportation and stabilization capacity of 17,000 b/d.

To give Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) complete control of a joint venture (JV) in which merger partner El Paso Corp. now owns one-half, its partnership on Wednesday agreed to buy a 50% interest in the Altamont gathering and processing system in Utah’s Uinta Basin, as well as the Camino Real Gathering System in the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas.

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (KMP) expects to complete during the third quarter the sale of pipeline and gas processing assets it agreed to let go in order to win antitrust approval for Kinder Morgan Inc.’s (KMI) acquisition of El Paso Corp. Plenty of prospective buyers are sniffing around, CEO Rich Kinder told financial analysts during an earnings conference call last week.