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Chesapeake Energy Corp. has created an oilfield services unit to house its growing business and to complement its massive U.S. drilling program. A former Boots & Coots executive was named CEO.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. has created an oilfield services unit to house its growing business and to complement its massive U.S. drilling program. A former Boots & Coots executive was named CEO.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. has named a former Boots & Coots executive to lead a newly created oilfield services unit that will house the producer’s growing business and complement its massive U.S. drilling program.

The recently formed Eagle Ford Task Force, which was created by Texas Railroad Commissioner David Porter (see Shale Daily, July 29), outlined its agenda for the rest of the year at a meeting last week. The 24 task force members plan to focus on water usage and hydraulic fracturing; the impact of oil and gas production on community infrastructure; the need for public education about oil and gas production; and the promotion of economic development through the industry. At the meeting members discussed workforce issues affecting the region. Industry representatives estimated that approximately 120 jobs are connected to each drilling rig and currently there are about 200 rigs operating in the Eagle Ford. However, employers are often battling failed drug tests and background tests or the lack of commercial drivers licenses when trying to fill jobs in the burgeoning oil and natural gas play, they said.

French producer Toreador Resources Corp. and ZaZa Energy LLC, a privately held oil and gas company based in Houston, have announced plans to merge in a cash and stock deal valued at approximately $294 million, creating a single company with significant shale holdings on two continents.

Although the city-created project has sputtered at times during its almost three-year permitting process, the Palmdale, CA, hybrid natural gas and solar power generation project has won approval of the California Energy Commission (CEC) Wednesday. However, the approval still doesn’t mean the project will be built.

PG&E Corp. said Tuesday it has named DTE Energy Anthony Earley, 62, as its new chairman, CEO and president, filling a vacancy created last April when the former PG&E head retired abruptly as the company’s San Francisco-based combination utility was facing mounting public criticism for its handling of the San Bruno pipeline rupture and explosion.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued a favorable environmental assessment (EA) to Dominion Transmission Inc. (DTI) for a proposal to expand its pipeline system in Pennsylvania to deliver more Marcellus Shale gas to markets in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region.

All California operators of intrastate natural gas transmission pipelines must prepare implementation plans to pressure test or replace all pipeline segments that have not been tested or lack sufficient records verifying such tests, according to a proposed decision released last Tuesday by Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Maribeth Bushey.