Launched

MarkWest Energy Partners LP has launched midstream expansions for gathering facilities in two areas of West Virginia and in southwestern Pennsylvania to support growing natural gas production for affiliates of Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Antero Resources Corp.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. and CEO Aubrey K. McClendon were notified by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the Fort Worth, TX, regional office has launched an informal inquiry and “requested that the company and Mr. McClendon retain certain documents,” the company said after the stock market closed on Thursday.

Constitution Pipeline Co. LLC, a development launched in February by frequent partners Williams Partners LP and Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., on Tuesday executed precedent agreements for the proposed 121-mile natural gas pipeline, designed to connect Marcellus Shale production in northeastern Pennsylvania to Northeast markets by spring 2015.

Salt Lake City-based Questar Corp. has launched a business unit to take advantage of potential growth in the natural gas transportation fueling business, especially trucking fleets, senior executives said Wednesday during a 1Q2012 earnings conference call.

Climate change impacts are lessened when power plants burn natural gas instead of coal, but the same is not necessarily true when vehicles burn natural gas instead of traditional fuels because methane leakage more than offsets the clean-burning benefits of gas, according to a methane leakage model developed by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and university researchers. However, the gas industry countered that the model relies on “outdated and incomplete” data.

Poland’s technically recoverable shale gas resources are much lower than projections made last year by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), according to a report issued Wednesday.

D’Lo Gas Storage LLC on Thursday launched a nonbinding open season to gauge market interest in a multicycle salt cavern, an interstate natural gas storage facility to be sited in Simpson County, MS.

Small pipeline projects intended to achieve big increases in Canadian imports of shale gas from the United States were launched last Tuesday in Ontario by Union Gas Ltd. and Enbridge Gas Distribution Inc.

Small pipeline projects intended to achieve big increases in Canadian imports of shale gas from the United States were launched Tuesday in Ontario by Union Gas Ltd. and Enbridge Gas Distribution Inc.