Marcellus

MarkWest Energy Partners LP on Thursday said its Houston Processing and Fractionation facility in southwest Pennsylvania would remain offline until a full assessment of equipment could be made after a lightning strike on Wednesday caused limited damage to one of its processing plants there.

An environmental group in Pennsylvania has sent a letter to lawmakers in the state Senate to voice its opposition to a bill that would require the Environmental Quality Board (EQB) to create separate regulations for conventional and unconventional wells.

Activist fund Relational Investors LLC, helmed by former T. Boone Pickens lieutenants, is becoming the biggest shareholder in Magnum Hunter Resources Inc. (MHR) with a 15% stake after investing $150 million.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett issued an executive order Friday lifting a moratorium on new oil and gas leases in state parks and forests and replacing it with a measure that will allow such leases, provided the drilling occurs on nearby land and surfaces in the parks and forests are not disturbed.

Pennsylvania state Rep. Jesse White (D-Cecil), a frequent and controversial critic of Marcellus Shale development, defeated a challenger for his party’s nomination on Tuesday to the state House of Representatives.

A state senator in New York State said he believes Gov. Andrew Cuomo will come out in support of high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) after the gubernatorial election in November, and allow some form of the practice to take place, perhaps as early as January 2015.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reversed approval of a Class II injection well it permitted in central Pennsylvania in February, citing stiff opposition and appeals from local residents and public officials during a public comment period.

York County, PA, businessman Tom Wolf, who took a seat at the front of the state’s Democratic primary for governor in January and never looked back, earned his party’s nomination on Tuesday to challenge Republican incumbent Tom Corbett in November.

Spectra Energy is in the preliminary stages of building a 427-mile, 36-inch diameter natural gas pipeline, with capacity of up to 1.1 Bcf/d, that would run from the heart of the Marcellus Shale to North Carolina.