Chesapeake selling $6.9B in assets

Chesapeake Energy Corp. moved closer to its 2012 fundraising goal on Wednesday as it announced asset sales totaling about $6.9 billion.

The Oklahoma City-based oil and natural gas company has been looking to shed some assets to help overcome a budget shortfall estimated to be as high as $22 billion.

CEO Aubrey McClendon said the deals announced Wednesday put Chesapeake close to its goal of raising $13 billion to $14 billion this year.

“These transactions are significant steps in the transformation of our company’s asset base to a more balanced portfolio among oil, natural gas liquids and natural gas resources and production by focusing on developing and harvesting the value embedded in the 10 core plays in which Chesapeake has built a No. 1 or No. 2 position,” he said in a news release.

Chesapeake will use a portion of the proceeds from the asset sales to pay off a $4 billion loan it took out in May.

Chesapeake is selling the bulk of its acreage in west Texas’ oil-rich Permian Basin for about $3.3 billion. The company also will generate an additional $3 billion by selling most of its midstream holdings in a series of transactions.

The sale of assets in Ohio’s Utica Shale and other noncore areas will bring in another $600 million.

The Permian Basin assets have been viewed as the prize of Chesapeake’s portfolio of holdings for sale.

A subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to buy Chesapeake’s holdings in the lower Delaware Basin, while Chevron USA Inc. is buying acreage in the northern part of the basin.

Houston-based EnerVest is acquiring Chesapeake assets in the Midland Basin in a previously announced deal.

Those holdings produced about 21,000 barrels of liquids and 90 million cubic feet of natural gas per day during the 2012 second quarter. That accouned for only 5.7 percent of Chesapeake’s production during the quarter.

Chesapeake is retaining about 470,000 acres in Midland Basin for future sale or development.

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