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Regulators with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) are drafting rules governing centralized earthen impoundments that would temporarily hold wastewater from oil and gas drilling.

If a variety of industry experts are correct, the western United States is on the brink of an upsurge in natural gas demand outstripping supply and resulting in a need for a new wave of infrastructure being built from the Rockies westward.

The board of directors of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA) elected David J. Devine, president of central regional natural gas pipelines for Kinder Morgan, as chairman. Devine, who was elected second vice chair last year, follows C. Gregory Harper as INGAA chairman (see Daily GPI, Oct. 4, 2012). The board also elected Ron Tanski, CEO of National Fuel Gas Co., as first vice chairman, and Jimmy Staton, vice president of NiSource and group CEO of Columbia Pipeline Group, as second vice chair. INGAA officers are elected for one-year terms.

With production, takeaway capacity and employment all on the rise in the Appalachian Basin, the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) on Wednesday issued a list of recommended practices for drilling and completing oil and natural gas wells in the play.

With the potential to help satisfy growing regulatory concerns about flowback and produced water used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking), Los Angeles-based OriginOil Inc. has signed a pay-per-barrel agreement with small Colorado-based water treatment company Industrial Systems Inc. (ISI).

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Information Administration (EIA), one of the few governmental agencies that was able to stay open during the beginning days of the shutdown because it had non-annual funds, said it would cease operations and furlough its staff at the end of the day Friday.

Millennium Pipeline Co. LLC said Monday it has received approval from FERC to construct the proposed Hancock Compressor project in the town of Hancock in Delaware County, NY. The addition of the compressor station will allow for more Marcellus Shale gas to be pumped north to demand centers in the Northeast.

The rate hike reflects the larger-than-expected first-year total cost of service of $250.2 million for the expansion, which is expected to go into service on Nov. 1.

BP and affiliates have urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to dismiss allegations that they gamed the financial and physical energy markets.