Houston-based Gastar Exploration Inc. said in a regulatory filing on Monday it has hired advisers to explore strategic alternatives, including the possibility of selling the company or restructuring the balance sheet.

Gastar, which remains highly leveraged, said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it has hired Kirkland & Ellis LLP as a legal adviser and Perella Weinberg Partners LP as a financial adviser. The firms are helping to evaluate “financial, transactional and strategic alternatives.”

Gastar said in a separate filing last week that Ares Management LP, which committed $425 million last year to help the company refinance its balance sheet and de-risk its Midcontinent assets, has sent a nonbinding preliminary term sheet proposing that management consider selling the company or pursuing another “potential restructuring transaction.”

At the time of the Ares investment last year, Gastar warned that the capital would not provide “an immediate, comprehensive resolution to our leverage position.”

The company reported a 2017 net loss of $61.2 million (minus 31 cents/share). The losses continued in the first quarter with a net loss of $19.1 million (minus 9 cents). Gastar’s stock, which has traded on the New York Stock Exchange at a 52-week high of just $1.39, plummeted on Monday by nearly 60% to close at 21 cents/share.

Gastar became a Midcontinent pure-play in 2016 after it sold its Appalachian Basin assets to Tug Hill Inc. for $80 million. It also sold the West Edmund Lime Unit in Oklahoma to focus on other stacked reservoirs in the state. The company operates in the Sooner Trend of the Anadarko Basin, mostly in Canadian and Kingfisher counties (STACK).

The board has appointed directors Jerry Schuyler, Randolph Coley and Harry Quarls to serve on a committee to explore the financial alternatives. Schuyler is currently serving as interim CEO after J. Russell Porter left the company earlier this year for undisclosed reasons.