Chesapeake Energy Sells All Utica Shale Assets in $2 Billion Deal

By -
From Bloomberg:
Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s agreement to sell shale assets in Ohio for about $2 billion boosted the natural gas producer’s shares as it moves to whittle down debt.

The deal announced Thursday with closely held Encino Acquisition Partners is Chief Executive Officer Doug Lawler’s biggest in 3 1/2 years. After Chesapeake said almost all of the proceeds will be used to pay debt, its shares surged as much as 13 percent, the most in intraday trading since May 21.

America’s third-largest gas producer has seen rough times as prices for the heating and power-plant fuel plummeted. The company, once valued at almost $40 billion and now worth just one-tenth of that, has been punished by investors for a debt load amassed by late founder Aubrey McClendon.

The company has "under-performed because of legacy debt, legacy complexity and heavy gas-weighting," Lawler said in a telephone interview. Now, it has "transformed and is emerging as a very competitive growth story that no one expected would power through these difficult commodity price environments."

The Utica Shale assets in Ohio was the best asset to divest, Lawler said. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter. 
Encino is a 2017 creation of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and a Houston-based management team led by Hardy Murchison. The pension board plans to invest $1 billion into the partnership and own 98 percent of it, according to a separate statement. 
Chesapeake will no longer look to asset sales in the future to shrink its ratio of debt to profit, Lawler said. Instead, he’s aiming to achieve that target by raising production. 
Jettisoning the gas-rich Utica assets also will aid Lawler’s efforts to transform Chesapeake into a company focused predominantly on crude oil production. As of the end of 2017, more than 80 percent of the Oklahoma City-based explorer’s output was gas. Next year, he’s targeting 10 percent growth in the company’s oil production, according to the statement.
Click here to read the whole article.

Click here to view Chesapeake's press release on this deal.  Click here to read the release from Encino.

This is obviously some pretty huge news.  Now we will wait and see if the new owners of these assets choose to drill more wells or just sit on the acreage.

Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter!

Popular posts from this blog

Fracktivist in Dimock Releases Carefully Edited Video, Refuses to Release the Rest

By -
Image
From Energy in Depth: There is something very strange going on along Carter Road, in Dimock, Pennsylvania, and I’m not speaking of natural gas, methane migration, contamination, litigation or even the extensive water testing there by the EPA and others.  No, I’m talking about a new “Watergate” conspiracy, complete with 18 minutes of missing tape (well, video, actually). It seems the ever-present Green Party member and  naturist   Vera Scroggins  (a/k/a  Vera Duerga ) has posted a video of Craig Sautner meeting with the EPA.  Mysteriously, the video is but 14 seconds in length, cutting off conversation in what is obviously mid-stream.  It raises a question Craig Sautner, like  Ronald Reagan in Kings Row , might have asked, “Where’s the rest of me?’  Carter Road, isn’t Kings Row, of course, (at least not until you arrive at  the mansion Scott Ely, one of the Dimock litigants, is building with his royalty money ), but there appears to be...
Read more

The Second Largest Oil and Gas Merger - Cabot and Cimarex

By -
Image
       Due to investor pressure, the U.S shale drillers are being pushed to improve financial and operational performance after a few years of poor returns. Even though the industry has improved its numbers, when compared to last year, investors still want more to be done for them to earn more money.      That's why two mid-tier shale drillers, Cabot and Climarex, have decided to merge in order to eliminate $100 million in annual costs, which means more money for the investors. This all-stock transaction is valued at about $7.4 billion, which is relatively high for the oil and gas sector.      The new entity will be renamed and the headquarters located in Houston, Texas. Cabot shareholders will own 49.5 percent of the new entity, and Climarex the rest.       The Cimarex-Cabot merger will address the investor's demand for a higher amount of returning cash. The initial plan is to pay a 50-cent-per-share special dividen...
Read more

Do You Know The History of Fracking?

By -
Image
  In 2018, 59% of total oil production in the U.S came from hydraulic fracking, which means it accounted for more than two-thirds of domestically manufactured gas. By 2024, fracking will reach an astounding $68 billion market value! Of course, fracking is not a new drilling method as you can trace it back hundreds of years. That's why we want to consider the history of hydraulic fracturing (fracking). We will be stating historical facts about it and focusing on the major historical occurrences that have influenced modern-day fracking. Pre-Fracking Days The idea of fracking started back in 1862 when Edward A.L. Roberts (Civil War veteran) witnessed Confederate soldiers exploding artillery rounds into a canal that obstructed a battlefield. At the time, Edward A.L. Roberts called it superincumbent fluid tamping. On April 26th, 1865, Edward A.L. Roberts began experimenting with exploding torpedoes, which consisted of lowering a torpedo containing an amount of powder from fifteen to tw...
Read more