New websites provide a few more clues about Aubrey McClendon’s latest ventures
Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey McClendon speaks at a 2010 energy conference.
I have stumbled across websites for two more new companies that former Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon has formed, Arcadia Capital LLC, and McClendon Energy Partners LP. You can read more here about about McClendon’s new exploration and production company American Energy Partners LP, which is now hiring.
On its website, Arcadia Capital describes itself as a “family office that manages investments in oil and natural gas, real estate development and venture capital.”
Will McClendon will use Arcadia Capital to manage his personal investments? You can read more here about family offices.
McClendon’s personal holdings are extensive, including a 283-acre tree farm in Arcadia, a $70 million stake in ProCure Treatment Centers, Inc., a 19 percent interest in the Oklahoma City Thunder, as well as several restaurants and real estate development projects.
McClendon Energy Partners remains something of an enigma. There’s nothing to see on the website but a blurry shot of McClendon’s torso and gesturing hands.
Somebody out there knows more. E-mail me at bbailey@opubco.com.
Bakken oil estimates increased
The U.S. Geological Survey on Tuesday more than doubled its estimate of recoverable oil in the Bakken Formation of North Dakota and Montana.
Oklahoma City oilman Harold Hamm still thinks the number is far too low.
The government now says the world’s fastest-growing oilfield likely holds about 7.4 billion barrels of undiscovered oil that can be recovered with today’s technology.
The number is 49 times more than its 1995 forecast of 151 million barrels of recoverable oil. By 2008 the geological survey revised its estimate to 3.7 million barrels.
Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources Inc. was one of the first developers in the area and now has a hand in about 20 percent of the wells drilled so far.
Continental Resources in 2010 estimated the field contains 24 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil out of 577 billion barrels of total oil in place.
Last year, the company bumped up its total oil estimate by 56 percent to 903 billion barrels.
Continental Resources and other producers in the area are now producing oil from at four different rock layers and continue to improve drilling techniques in the area.
“The Bakken continues to get bigger, as large fields around the world have always done,” Rick Bott, Continental’s president and chief operating officer, said at the company’s investors day in October.
Recap of the OSU Energy Conference
Oklahoma State University held its 7th Annual Energy Conference on Tuesday in Oklahoma City, and our man Jay F. Marks (@okenergybeat) was a tweeting machine. You can read his dispatches below and check out Energy Editor Adam Wilmoth’s recap of the conference here. For the speaker presentations, go here.
Aubrey McClendon’s new company is hiring….and he wants people to know it
Aubrey McClendon’s new exploration and production venture American Energy Partners, LP has put up two billboards on NW 63 announcing that the company is now hiring.
The signs are near NW 63 and Interstate 235 and NW 63 at N. Harvey Avenue — right across the street from American Energy Partners’ new headquarters in the Harvey Parkway office building.
The Oklahoman broke the story last week about McClendon’s new energy company.
The company’s website, www.ae-lp.com, also has been updated and now contains more information on McClendon’s vision for the venture.
As always, McClendon is dreaming big.
“We’re looking for the industry’s best and brightest to join our team and help build a best-in-class E&P company to create significant value for our partners, our employees, our community and our country,” the website says.
McClendon is looking to make American Energy Partners a new “industry leader,” according to the website.
“We are a start-up, but we are ready to make our mark,” the website says.
McClendon’s separation agreement prohibits him from poaching employees from Chesapeake. But those billboards have to be pretty hard to miss for Chesapeake workers who take I-235 to work and get off at NW 63.
Know more? Seen any more billboards? Let me know at bbailey@opubco.com or hit me up on Twitter.
Aubrey McClendon’s new company has a website
Aubrey McClendon talks to a Chesapeake employee during his farewell party in March at Chesapeake headquarters.
One of former Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s CEO Aubrey McClendon’s new companies, American Energy Partners LP, now has its website up.
There’s not much to see now, but from the looks of things McClendon is starting a new exploration and production company.
I wrote McClendon an e-mail at his new American Energy Partners e-mail address asking if he was willing to discuss his new venture with me. Promptly and politely, McClendon wrote back and said he was not ready to talk and probably wouldn’t be any time soon.
Click here for more on McClendon’s new ventures: American Energy Partners, McClendon Energy Partners and Arcadia Capital.
SandRidge Energy shareholder expects company to be sold after proxy fight
Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa is SandRidge Energy Inc.’s largest shareholder. His Fairfax Financials held about 12.7 percent of SandRidge’s outstanding stock as of February.
Watsa, who is known as the Canadian Warren Buffett, was largely silent during the Oklahoma City oil company’s proxy fight with TPG-Axon Capital, which ended last month with the hedge fund gaining a foothold on SandRidge’s board while pushing CEO Tom Ward toward the door.
Watsa wasn’t too optimistic about the company’s future when he talked to an investor about SandRidge recently at Fairfax Financials’ annual shareholder meeting in Toronto.
“It’s unfortunate, but we think that TPG is just going to flip it and sell it,” he said. “I mean yeah, we are going to make money on this, but we think that if Tom stayed in and grew value into the business, we think it could be worth 20-something a share.”
SandRidge was trading for less than $5 a share on Tuesday.
Watsa repeatedly expressed his support for Ward, whom he called an “amazing individual.” He praised Ward’s accomplishments at SandRidge and as co-founder of Chesapeake Energy Corp. with Aubrey McClendon.
“The man grew up living and breathing oil and gas. He helped built two great empires all from nothing,” he said. “We were really disappointed, because we knew that Tom could realize significant amounts of the assets. While we did disagree a little on the compensation, we think that Tom is great.”
The Fairfax team believes TPG-Axon ignored the long-term value of SandRidge’s holdings in the oil-rich Mississippian play as it pushed for control of the company, contributor Wilson Wang wrote for investment research site Seeking Alpha. Fairfax also is bullish on natural gas.
Aubrey McClendon is back in business
Aubrey McClendon’s companies have hung out their shingles at the Harvey Parkway building.
Just two weeks after leaving Chesapeake Energy, former CEO Aubrey McClendon appears to be moving full steam ahead with multiple new business ventures, at least two of them energy related.
As The Oklahoman first reported, McClendon has leased out the sixth floor of the Harvey Parkway building at 301 NW 63, just a few blocks away from Chesapeake’s main campus. He also has registered at least two new companies in the state of Oklahoma, Arcadia Capital LLC and McClendon Energy Operating LLC.
The entity American Energy Partners LP was also registered on the same day as McClendon Energy Operating by the law firm of former Chesapeake Energy director and long-time McClendon friend Shannon Self, records show.
All three companies have hung out their shingles at the Harvey Parkway.
The new companies have also registered several web domains. See here and here for details.
I paid a visit to the Harvey Parkway building Friday afternoon and spotted fresh paint in the parking lot. All of prime parking spots at the Harvey Parkway are now reserved for Suite 600 and American Energy.
Inside, a new flat-screen TV by the elevator notes that Arcadia Capital, McClendon Energy Partners and American Energy Partners are all headquartered in suite 600. Renovations are still ongoing on the sixth floor, but there is an office with the lights on just to the right of the elevator staffed with a receptionist.
McClendon & Co. is open for business, it seems.
McClendon also is taking some of the talent from Chesapeake with him, including Tom Price, a senior vice president who is leaving the company in May.
Will suite 600 at the Harvey Parkway give birth to Chesapeake 2.0? Only time will tell.
Chesapeake puts additional Ohio acreage up for sale
Faced with a lingering cash crunch, Chesapeake Energy Corp. is looking to sell up to $7 billion in assets this year.
The company has added close to 100,000 acres in Ohio’s Utica Shale to the properties it has listed with broker Meagher Energy Advisors. Chesapeake last summer listed more than 330,000 net acres in the area.
Chesapeake is refining its focus as it tries to rein in its budget and reduce drilling costs, acting CEO Steve Dixon said in a conference call last week.
Dixon said many of the assets Chesapeake will sell this year will be smaller acreage packages.
We are particularly pleased with the market’s response to the multiple small asset packages that we have offered,” he said. “Many of these assets may not be individually noteworthy to investors, but in aggregate, the combined value that we anticipate collecting this year will likely be very meaningful and lead to further progress in improving our balance sheet.”
The latest Ohio assets to hit the market include about 94,000 acres in Portage and Stark counties.
Cleveland reporter offers his take on Oklahoma City
A while back, I spent some time with John Funk, an energy and utilities reporter for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. He was visiting Oklahoma City to get a look at how the energy industry has shaped the state.
His stories ran over the weekend. One looked at the state and its energy sector, while the other focused on Chesapeake Energy Corp., which has been a major player in Ohio’s emerging Utica Shale formation.
“Oil has been a leading industry in this state for at least three generations. It is so ingrained into the culture that it’s a way of life for people who live and work there. And now the industry is drawing a couple of thousands of new residents each month to Oklahoma City,” Funk wrote.
Questions still loom about how the discovery of new reserves of oil and natural gas will impact Ohio, where many people are concerned about the environmental impact of fossil fuel exploration and development.
Funk did not find evidence of such issues in Oklahoma.
“Wellheads and pump jacks are everywhere. So many they appear to outnumber the trees. Oklahomans seem unfazed by their existence. The oil and gas producing equipment is in shopping center parking lots, along city streets and interstate highways, at the Will Rogers Airport, even on the grounds of the state capitol building.”
Seems to me that John did a pretty good job of capturing our city during his visit. What do you think?
Former Devon exec, Chesapeake target to attend Harvard Divinity School
Anadarko Petroleum Corp. Executive Chairman James Hackett plans to attend Harvard Divinity School later this year, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“Jim Hackett will be attending Harvard Divinity School to become better prepared to write, speak and teach about faith and leadership, which has been a long-held interest of Jim’s and one of the key reasons he is retiring from Anadarko,” Anadarko spokesman John Christiansen said.
Hackett, 59, was president and chief operating officer at Devon after its 2003 merger with Houston-based Ocean Energy Inc. He became CEO of Anadarko later that year, then led the company’s 2006 acquisition of Oklahoma City’s Kerr-McGee Corp.
Hackett, who retired as Anadarko CEO in May, reportedly turned down the opportunity to replace co-founder Aubrey McClendon at Chesapeake in January.
Chesapeake is expected to name McClendon’s successor before he leaves the company April 1.
