Including

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead submitted his slate of agency, board and commission appointments to his state Senate, including 10 that impact the energy sector. Mead reappointed Todd Parfitt as head of the state Department of Environmental Quality and Bill Russell as one of the three-member Public Service Commission (PSC), along with adding a new PSC nominee, Kara Brighton. For the 12-member Energy Resource Council at the University of Wyoming, he reappointed Carl Bauer, a private-sector consultant; resubmitted two earlier appointments from last year, Martha Wyrsch from Vestas American Wind; and Jeane Hull from Peabody Energy; and added two industry representatives, Tom Botts, a retired Shell Oil executive, and David Emery, CEO at Rapid City, SD-based Black Hills Corp. Among the other agency/commission appointments are Mark Doelger to the Oil/Gas Commission, and Bill Hawks who was reappointed to the Wyoming Pipeline Authority. The state Senate has five days to approve or reject the appointments.

Officials in the Canadian province of New Brunswick unveiled new rules for oil and natural gas development in the prospective Frederick Brook Shale on Friday, including a requirement that operators disclose all of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

The global liquefied natural gas (LNG) market is supply constrained, but that will change in the coming years as new liquefaction capacity comes online, including in North America, allowing LNG consumption growth to resume, Poten & Partners Inc.’s Darryl Houghton told a Houston audience last week.

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead is considering a pre-drilling water testing requirement for oil and natural gas operators in the state.

A federal judge in New Orleans on Tuesday approved an agreement between BP plc and the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the company to plead guilty to 14 criminal charges, including manslaughter, and pay more than $4 billion in criminal fines related to the Macondo deepwater well blowout in April 2010.

While California state officials are mulling new regulations related to oil and natural gas drilling, including hydraulic fracturing (fracking), a Stanford-connected engineering researcher/consultant has completed an updated analysis on some earlier work cautioning that fracking can induce seismic activity in geologically active areas, such as some of California’s old producing fields.

Natural gas pipeline expansion projects came under attack last week in the courts and at FERC, including a New Jersey group of pipeline opponents that petitioned a federal appeals court in Washington, DC, to review Commission orders with respect to Spectra Energy’s New Jersey-New York Expansion. Tennessee Gas Pipeline and Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (Transco) projects were the favorite target of environmentalists as well.

Natural gas vehicles (NGV) are finding growing demand throughout North America, including Mexico, according to presentations at the recent NGV Global 2012 conference in Mexico City. Tepeapulco, Mexico-based Dina Camiones said it has an order for 50 compressed natural gas (CNG)-fueled intercity-suburban route buses that would be built in 2013 for use in the Guadalajara area. With a range of more than 500 miles, the buses include 8.9-liter ISL G engines from Cummins Westport and advanced carbon fiber-on-aluminum CNG fuel cylinders from Luxfer.

In two separate but related cases in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, a judge has ruled that energy companies can’t use the state’s de facto moratorium against high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) as an excuse to invoke force majeure to extend expiring oil and natural gas leases.