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The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) “recently began serving” subpoenas on producers active in natural gas shale development, according to Baird Equity Research, which cited an “attorney advertisement” issued by Houston law firm Fulbright & Jaworski as its source.

Japan, the world’s leading importer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), set a record for using LNG to generate electricity during the first five months of the year in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami, which disabled nuclear facilities in the country, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported.

A New York Times article last month, which slammed the shale gas industry using unnamed industry and government sources, was sharply criticized earlier this month by the newspaper’s public editor.

A New York Times article last month, which slammed the shale gas industry using unnamed industry and government sources, was sharply criticized over the weekend by the newspaper’s public editor.

Pennsylvania lost nearly $200 million in state revenue by not imposing a tax on natural gas in October 2009, according a statewide think tank.

New York legislators have sent Gov. Andrew Cuomo a bill intended to improve the state’s water management, using a permitting program to prevent “overconsumption” by large-scale users, which may include the energy industry.

To fund increased drilling in core areas of the Marcellus Shale and Piceance Basin, Antero Resources has added $126 million to its capital budget for 2011.

The Texas Senate Wednesday evening unanimously passed legislation to require disclosure of the contents of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) fluid, “breaking ground that no other state has done,” according to state Sen. Troy Fraser (R-Horseshoe Bay). However, a floor amendment could thwart the bill’s progress.

An El Paso Corp.-operated well in North Louisiana is the first gas-producing well to be completed using all three of Halliburton’s proprietary CleanSuite production enhancement technologies for both hydraulic fracturing and water treatment, the companies said. More than four million gallons of an ecofriendly CleanStim fracture fluid system, which was first introduced by Halliburton last year (see Shale Daily, Nov. 16, 2010), was used to enhance the well, they said. CleanStim is a food-based fracking solution. Halliburton’s CleanStream process was used to treat nearly 4.8 million gallons of water and another one million gallons of produced water was prepared for recycling in the well through the CleanWave system.