Includes

Chief Oil & Gas LLC announced Thursday that separate investigations by the company and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) have concluded that Chief is not responsible for contaminating the water well of a woman in Bradford County, PA, who went on to become a vocal critic of hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

Chief Oil & Gas LLC has paid $180,000 in fines for two violations discovered last year at a well in Somerset County, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said Tuesday.

The Republican-controlled Ohio House of Representatives passed HB 133 by a 54-41 vote on Wednesday. The measure opens land owned by the state — including state parks — to oil and gas leasing and creates a five-member Oil and Gas Leasing Commission.

Legislation that would open leasing on all property owned by the state government — including state parks — to oil and gas companies is advancing through the Ohio General Assembly and is expected to pass.

Activity in the Delaware Basin of West Texas-southeastern New Mexico — specifically the Avalon and Wolfcamp shales and Bone Spring formation — has heated up enough for Nuevo Midstream LLC to take its gas processing plant near Orla, TX, out of mothballs.

Jones Energy Holdings (JEH) has acquired all of the producing properties in the Arkoma Basin owned and operated by Southridge Energy LLC and Pablo Energy II, which includes 20 MMcfe/d of current net production and more than 77,000 gross acres located primarily in the liquids-rich fairway of the Woodford Shale in Oklahoma’s Coal and Atoka counties, JEH said Wednesday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

As U.S. producers transform their asset base exclusively from natural gas to a more balanced one that includes oil and liquids, investors “might be surprised by what happens to the gas curve in the years ahead,” Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey McClendon said Monday.

A new report on natural gas as a fuel for Canada’s transportation sector outlines compelling reasons for embracing a diversified transportation fuel strategy that includes natural gas. However, significant challenges to deployment of natural gas vehicles (NGV) in Canada must be overcome, according to the report, which was released by a roundtable of the Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance (CNGVA).

Truck traffic on Pennsylvania roads that is generated by Marcellus Shale drilling operations has cost the state $30-35 million more than the industry is providing for road repairs, according to a report by the state’s Department of Transportation (DOT).