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The coming summer will be warmer than normal across most of the United States, but still “a reprieve from the big heat of the last three summers,” according to forecasters at Weather Services International (WSI).

Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. (CGT), a NiSource Inc. subsidiary, has applied for FERC approval of a pair of projects designed to collectively increase the company’s transportation capacity out of the Marcellus Shale by an additional 444,000 Dth/d.

Cardinal Midstream II LLC has secured a $200 million equity commitment from EnCap Flatrock Midstream to support midstream infrastructure development in conventional and unconventional resource plays, particularly in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and New Mexico. Cardinal is focused on natural gas and crude oil gathering, compression and centralized production facilities, condensate stabilization, vapor recovery, and natural gas treating and processing. With the new commitment, Cardinal is led by CEO Doug Dormer and President Marc Lyons. Mark Ward has joined the company as COO. Ward has more than 30 years of engineering, operations and project management experience in the upstream and midstream.

Citing “intense pressure” from industry and its allies in Congress, a New Jersey congressman said Wednesday that the Interior Department appears to be making its proposed rules governing hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of oil and gas wells on public lands weaker, not stronger.

Since the latter half of last year, Swift Energy Co. has been directing Eagle Ford drilling at a narrower section of the lower Eagle Ford with more precision than previous drilling, and it’s been paying off, said CEO Terry Swift.

A student-led effort in California has emerged to place a measure on next year’s statewide ballot to enact a tax on oil and natural gas extracted from the state. Backers now have about five months to collect at least 505,000 signatures to qualify for next year’s ballot.

FERC has approved the pre-filing request of CE FLNG LLC, an affiliate of Cambridge Energy Holding LLC, for a liquefaction facility to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) from a proposed floating production facility offshore Louisiana south of Plaquemines Parish.

FERC Thursday vacated certificates — a Section 3 authorization and a presidential permit — for AES Ocean Express LLC to build the U.S. leg of a pipeline to import natural gas from the company’s proposed $800 million liquefied natural gas (LNG) import project in the Bahamas.

President Obama’s nominee for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sailed through her confirmation hearing Thursday, fielding softball questions from Democrats. The issues raised by Republicans were more pointed, but not by much.