Chesapeake Energy Corp. sent a letter to its shareholders today, aiming to combat a stream of criticism from some of its largest and most vocal investors. The nation’s second-largest natural gas producer after Exxon Mobil Corp. framed its letter as a direct response to a letter sent to shareholders by New York City Comptroller John Liu. Liu asked shareholders not to vote for the two directors up for reelection to the Chesapeake board of directors because of “a history of weak board oversight and accountability.”  More »

A Texas agency is launching an initiative designed to reduce industrial flaring, a major source of air pollution.  More »

Content has been mysteriously vanishing from the website of Chesapeake Energy Corp. in recent weeks, as the company has faced increasing scrutiny and investor complaints about its strategy and executive perks.  More »

Israel Land Development Co. Energy Ltd., a natural-gas explorer, plans to drill early next month off the country’s Mediterranean coast and has funds needed to complete the testing work, its chief executive officer said.  More »

Doctors given new access to the proprietary chemical recipes that oil and gas drillers use to crack into Ohio shale would be prohibited from sharing the information with the public under an energy proposal moving through the Ohio House.  More »

The Ohio House is preparing to vote on rules for natural-gas drillers that Republican Governor John Kasich calls among the nation’s toughest, even as environmentalists say they let companies decide which industrial chemicals stay secret.  More »

Chesapeake Energy Corp. doubled down Tuesday on a plan that has drawn criticism from shareholders over its aggressive approach to expand during a major cashflow crunch. The nation’s second-largest natural gas producer after Exxon Mobil Corp , in an investor presentation posted on its website Tuesday, said it has “withstood an unprecedented negative media campaign” over the last five weeks, which has prompted 1.2 billion shares of company’s stock to trade hands, nearly double the amount of its shares outstanding.  More »

Chad Porter wants to run his 18- wheeler trucks on frozen natural gas across Canada’s Rocky mountains even before the world’s longest chain of refueling stations gets built to keep them fueled.  More »

Technip plans to buy Shaw Group’s energy and chemicals business for roughly $300 million, it announced today.  More »

Chesapeake Energy’s board of directors is drawing more fire, this time from two major shareholder advisory services. International Shareholder Services and Egan-Jones Proxy Services are calling for changes to the board, which they say has failed to curb the aggressive debt strategies of Chesapeake chief executive officer Aubrey McClendon.  More »

Environmental advocates were among dozens of witnesses lining up to testify Monday on a bill laying out Ohio’s new regulations for horizontal shale drilling and the use of renewable energy.  More »

When Dan Fitzsimmons looks across the Susquehanna River and sees the flares of Pennsylvania gas wells, he thinks bitterly of the riches beneath his own land locked up by the heated debate that has kept hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, out of New York.  More »