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The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Thursday filed an enforcement action charging New York Mercantile Exchange Inc. (Nymex), a unit of CME Group, and two former CME Nymex employees, William Byrnes and Christopher Curtin, with violating the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC regulations through the repeated disclosures of nonpublic material customer information over a period of two and a half years to an outside commodity broker. CME Group fired back that not only did it address and handle the issue appropriately, the complaint against Nymex is “neither justified as a matter of law nor consistent with the regulatory structure” established by the CEA.

The U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has cleared the acquisition of Calgary-based Nexen Inc. by CNOOC Ltd., a unit of state-controlled China National Offshore Oil Co., giving the deal all the approvals it needs to close, Nexen said Tuesday.

St. Louis-based Laclede Group said Thursday it has joined with a unit of Siemens Industry Inc. to launch a fueling system for compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles called Spire that will be introduced later this year at a commercial/public fueling facility at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. intends to drill at least four Utica Shale test wells in Ohio this year, the Houston-based independent exploration and production company said Tuesday.

Constellation Energy Gas Choice, a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corp. and a long-time competitive energy supplier in Ohio, said Tuesday that it has been selected by Trumbull County in northeastern Ohio to provide residents and small businesses with natural gas following a competitive bidding process under the state’s natural gas choice, governmental aggregation program.

Five salvage experts boarded the grounded drilling unit Kulluk Wednesday morning on the southeast shoreline of Sitkalidak Island, AK, to conduct a structural assessment to be used in salvage plans being developed by the Kulluk Tow Incident Unified Command.

With an eleventh-hour donation, a regional unit of the national Trust for Public Land (TPL) said Wednesday it completed an $8.75 million transaction with Plains Exploration and Production Co. (PXP) to acquire and retire oil and natural gas leases in the Wyoming Range.

With the clock ticking on an end-of-year deadline, a regional unit of the national Trust for Public Land (TPL) said Friday it is short the full $8.75 million it needs to meet a commitment to Plains Exploration and Production Co. (PXP) to acquire and retire oil and natural gas leases in the Wyoming Range.

Sempra Energy’s U.S. power and gas unit has agreed to sell half of its natural gas-fired 1,250 MW Mesquite Power Plant in Arizona to Phoenix-based Salt River Project (SRP) for $371 million. The agreement, which also includes a half-interest in infrastructure shared by the two 625 MW units at Mesquite, requires approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and other agencies. San Diego-based Sempra said it expects all the approvals will be received in the first quarter. SRP’s board earlier this year approved its acquisition of a 100% interest in one of Mesquite’s 625 MW units. Sempra U.S. Gas and Power CEO Jeffrey Martin said the sale helps Sempra fulfill its goal of “reducing exposure to the merchant power market, while also allowing us to put greater emphasis on growing our Southeast natural gas portfolio.”