This week’s most important shale gas stories:

( 1 ) Chesapeake Energy Continues Cuts

Chesapkeake Energy, Ohio’s largest natural gas driller, opened a new office in Belmont County this year. Despite the opening, the company is still shedding hundreds of workers around the country, according to the Weirton Daily-Times.

The company has been cutting jobs since August. The latest cut, in Uniontown, Ohio, will result in 60 employees losing jobs.

»Via: Weirton Daily-Times Chesapeake continues employee cuts

( 2 ) Drilling Industry Increases Housing Demands

It’s no secret that an influx of workers from around the country has increased housing demands in the Utica and Marcellus shale region of Ohio and Pennsylvania. But, natural gas workers are not interested in buying homes, they’re renting, according to the Marrietta Times.

Read it:

Linda McClain of Coldwell Banker, Landmark Realtors, said the real estate market has seen an increase of sales of properties tied to the influx of people in the drilling industry.

“We have sold several houses to people moving from that industry,” she said.

However, she said many are opting to rent rather than buy and that has led to a boom in another industry.

“What is really booming right now in the rental market,” she said. “It is very hard to find a good rental in the area now and we have seen rental prices go up recently.”

» Via: The Marietta Times , Drilling industry creates housing demand locally

( 3 ) New York City Getting Marcellus Pipeline

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted permission for the activation of a new natural gas pipeline from Spectra Energy under New York City’s West Village and Chelsea neighborhoods, DNAinfo.com reports.

The pipeline is scheduled to go online Nov. 1.

According to DNAinfo, the pipeline will pump approximately 800 million cubic feet of Marcellus Shale gas to the city each day.

The gas is expected to provide enough energy to heat about 2 million homes.

 » Via: DNAinfo.com › Controversial Natural Gas Pipeline Gets Federal Approval to Start Pumping

( 4 ) Colorado Purusing Companies for Neglecting to Report Chemicals

Colorado is levying fines on 11 companies that failed to report their fracturing chemicals to the FracFocus website, a website that provides the national hydraulic fracturing chemical registry.

The move, reported by EnergyWire, follows criticism that more than one-fifth of the reports companies filed last year were late.

Seven of the companies have agreed to settle with $1,000 fines.

North Dakota is the only other state that’s fined a company for failure to disclose the chemicals.

» Via: EnergyWire › Colo. starts levying fines for late FracFocus reports