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Chesapeake Energy Corp., the mega-operator that Aubrey McClendon built shale-by-shale, is being repurposed brick-by-brick as the company transitions from risky exploration to steady production.

A flood debris-driven sour gas leak on a wellhead pipeline in the Turner Valley south of Calgary was brought under control at midday Friday, according to the Alberta Energy Regulator and the natural gas production operator, Calgary-based Legacy Oil & Gas Inc.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has extended the deadline from April 30 until Nov. 15 for the public to submit data and scientific literature as part of the agency’s study of the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on drinking water sources.

With increasing national news media and regulatory attention and despite ExxonMobil’s assurances that everything is under control at a plugged oil spill near Little Rock, AR, hardened opposition and skeptical stakeholders in the high-stakes business of finding markets for Western Canada’s heavy tar sands-based crude oil are raising red flags, as evidenced in California this week.

Saying they needed more time to implement new oil and natural gas drilling regulations, elected officials in Boulder County, CO, have extended for four months a drilling permit moratorium to June 10.

Houston-based Wild Well Control Inc., an oil and gas well fire company, was called in Wednesday to help assist in controlling a fire at a natural gas well that blew out just after midnight Tuesday in Utah (see Daily GPI, Jan. 24).

Crestwood Midstream Partners LP on Tuesday said it is building its foothold in the Marcellus Shale after wresting control of a natural gas partnership created last year.

By a narrow margin, voters last Tuesday elected President Obama to a second term in office, and kept Republicans in control of the House of Representatives and Democrats in the majority in the Senate. By maintaining the status quo in Washington, DC, this may ensure that the stalemate over energy policy will continue for another four years.

As a hedge against higher natural gas prices, a subsidiary of LSB Industries Inc., an Oklahoma-based chemical and equipment manufacturer, has bought an interest in a package of wells and potential drilling locations in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale.