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British Columbia (BC) Premier Christy Clark trekked north to see new gas processing and pipeline facilities start work in the resource-rich region where Canada’s western-most province meets the Yukon and Northwest Territories.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Wednesday a subsidiary of Talisman Energy Inc. will pay more than $62,000 in fines to settle charges that the company violated hazardous chemical reporting requirements for the past three years at 52 natural gas drilling sites in Pennsylvania.

It will add to the hydrocarbon-rich state’s mitigation of flared associated natural gas supplies in the Bakken Shale play.

Encana Corp. is placing a $600 million bet this year that a transition to more oil and liquids-rich production will help sustain the company until natural gas prices strengthen, CEO Randy Eresman said Thursday.

Revenues from natural gas liquids (NGL) — particularly those from liquids-rich shale plays — have been like a mega vitamin for anemic dry gas economics, but it’s not the fourth quarter of 2011 anymore, and currently depressed NGL prices are expected to stick around for a while.

The expanded use of horizontal drilling and the advent of hydraulic fracturing helped Pennsylvania more than quadruple its natural gas production between 2009 and 2011, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

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.

Producers have eschewed dry gas in favor of more lucrative oil and liquids-rich production, and midstream operators are following them. Energy Transfer Partners LP (ETP) is buying Sunoco Inc. for $5.3 billion in a deal intended give it oil and liquids business and a presence in the Marcellus Shale.

Shale talk and action are both picking up in Illinois as oil/gas exploration and production (E&P) companies and state officials are getting more involved in the fields and in the state capital in Springfield. As the energy companies seek more leases from farmers, the lawmakers have a proposed state law (SB 3280) covering hydraulic fracturing (fracking).