Selling shale assets

Selling shale assets

OKLAHOMA CITY

Chesapeake Energy Corp. announced Friday that it agreed to sell $106 million in Utica and Marcellus shale midstream assets to Access Midstream Partners, also in Oklahoma City.

The 103 compression units, which have a combined capacity of about 200,000 horsepower, service gathering systems in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, Chesapeake said in a statement.

The deal is expected to close by the end of the second quarter.

Economists: Better economy in spring

WASHINGTON

When the weather warms up, so, too, will the U.S. economy.

That, at least, is the prevailing view of economists, who shrugged off a government report Friday that the economy was weaker last quarter than first thought.

Severe winter weather probably is slowing growth again this quarter. But as the chill and snow fade into memory, long-delayed spending by consumers and businesses could invigorate the economy starting in spring.

In the view of most analysts, the snowstorms and extreme cold have exerted a harmful but only temporary effect on the economy.

The Commerce Department said Friday that the economy grew at a 2.4 percent annual rate last quarter, in part because consumers didn’t spend as much as initially estimated.

Violations issued over coal-ash spill

RALEIGH, N.C.

North Carolina regulators issued notice to Duke Energy on Friday that the company will be cited for violating environmental standards in connection with a massive coal-ash spill that coated 70 miles of the Dan River with toxic sludge.

Two formal notices issued by the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources cite Duke for separate violations of wastewater and stormwater regulations. The agency could levy fines against Duke for the violations, but the amounts have not yet been determined.

The spill began Feb. 2 when an old stormwater pipe running under a 27-acre coal-ash dump at Duke’s Dan River Steam Station in Eden collapsed. It took the company nearly a week to fully plug the leak.

Data theft at casino

LAS VEGAS

Computer hackers stole the personal information of tens of thousands of Las Vegas Sands customers during a data breach earlier this month, the casino company said Friday.

The company said in a regulatory filing that information about some patrons at its Bethlehem, Pa., hotel-casino was compromised during the Feb. 10 attack. Spokesman Ron Reese said the number of customers affected was in the mid-five- figure range, as far as the company could tell so far.

Examples of the kinds of legally protected data that were stolen include Social Security and driver’s-license numbers. An informational website Sands has set up warns that credit-card information and bank-account information also may have been stolen. The company is providing credit monitoring and identity-theft protection to customers affected by the hacking.

Vindicator staff/wire reports