Employees

Employees of Royal Dutch Shell plc and ExxonMobil Corp. were reported to be among the 298 victims of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down by a missile fired by unknown assailants over Ukraine on Thursday.

Employees at a West Texas oilfield services company deliberately dumped hazardous waste containing acid into a city of Odessa manhole, harming the city’s water treatment operations, a police investigation and lawsuit allege.

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, has urged the federal government to stop “mining, drilling and other extractive activities .. until employees are no longer locked out.”

More than 800 employees lost their jobs this week, with about 640 in Oklahoma City alone.

More than 800 Chesapeake Energy Corp. employees were laid off on Tuesday as CEO Doug Lawler continues to make over the company that Aubrey McClendon built (see related story).

Despite the shutdown of the federal government, all of the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports should be released on schedule this week and next, the agency said Tuesday. FERC also was conducting business as usual Tuesday for an unspecified time until its reserve funds run out. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) had only key personnel continuing to work.

In the event of a potential government shutdown beginning at 12:00 a.m. (EST) on Oct. 1, FERC said the majority of its approximately 1,500 employees would be furloughed, while it would continue to inspect liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects, monitor energy markets for manipulation or other violations of Commission rules and potential threats to energy infrastructure.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. is restructuring in more ways than one, with more layoffs expected across the nationwide organization.

SandRidge Energy Inc. founder Tom Ward, the former chairman and CEO, was replaced Wednesday by the board of directors, which said its decision was “in the best interests of the company and its shareholders at this time.”