Chesapeake Energy Corp. is considering the sale of most of its stake in Clean Energy Fuels Corp., the liquefied natural gas (LNG) transportation infrastructure company in which it invested in 2011.

Clean Energy disclosed the sale in a Securities and Exchange Commission For S-3 filing that was issued after the market closed last Wednesday. Affiliate Chesapeake NG Ventures Corp. owns 7.329 million shares, or 7.7%, of the company. It is it may reduce its stake to 1.1%, the filing said.

Chesapeake two years ago launched the NG Ventures business through a $1 billion fund that was created to invest in companies and technologies that would enable gasoline and diesel fuel to be replaced with natural gas and natural gas-to-liquids fuels (see NGI, July 18, 2011). To fund the effort, Chesapeake said at the time it would redirect up to 2% of its forecasted annual drilling budget to projects that would stimulate increased gas demand.

However, the company has since become embroiled in financial scandals involving outgoing CEO Aubrey McClendon, and it has been forced to sell billions in assets. Last year alone Chesapeake divested close to $12 billion in assets and this year it plans to sell as much as $7 billion more (see NGI, March 4a; Feb. 25).

The $150 million investment three years ago in Clean Energy Fuels was to be made in three $50 million tranches, with the final tranche planned for this June. Last month the California company released the third edition of “The Road to Natural Gas,” which said it built 127 compressed natural gas and LNG fueling stations in 2012, or double the number from 2011 (see NGI, March 4b).

Chesapeake through its NG Ventures fund also invested $155 million in 2011 to buy a half-interest in Sundrop Fuels Inc., which is developing “green gasoline” made from natural gas and cellulosic material. Sundrop CEO Wayne Simmons last year said the Colorado-based Sundrop was developing a $500 million facility in Alexandria, LA, to produce the gas-based fuels by early 2015.

Meanwhile, the board of directors’ audit committee chair, V. Burns Hargis, resigned on Thursday. Hargis, who had served on the board since September 2008, currently is president of Oklahoma State University.

Louis A. Raspino, former CEO of oilfield services firm Pride International Inc., has been elected to replace Hargis; he would stand for election at the shareholder meeting in June. Raspino served as CEO of Pride beginning in 2005 until it merged with Ensco plc in May 2011. He also previously was CFO of The Louisiana Land & Exploration Co., which merged with Burlington Resources Inc. (now part of Anadarko Petroleum Corp.) in 1997. Raspino also previously was vice president of finance for Halliburton Co. and CFO of Grant Prideco Inc.

“It is an honor to be selected to join the board of one of our country’s leading energy producers — a company that played a leading role in changing the U.S. energy supply paradigm from scarcity to abundance,” said Raspino. “I look forward to learning more about what I believe are world-class assets and human talent that together hold tremendous potential for future value creation.”

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