Chesapeake

Chesapeake Energy Corp. is exiting Ohio’s Utica Shale, a play it pioneered, in a $2 billion divestiture to Houston-based startup Encino Acquisition Partners (EAP), which has plans to aggressively develop the 900,000 net acres.

BCE-Mach LLC, launched only weeks ago to target Midcontinent development, said Monday it was the buyer of Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s Mississippian Lime assets in Oklahoma, which it sold for $500 million.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. won’t discriminate between its oil and natural gas properties this year as it looks to keep unloading assets in an ongoing quest to get leaner and cut another $2-3 billion of debt from its balance sheet.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. has cut 13% of its workforce, or 400 employees, as part of ongoing belt tightening at the company, CEO Doug Lawler told staff in an email on Tuesday.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. is focused on getting leaner next year with two “front and center” goals of spending within cash flow and keeping optionality in its expansive onshore portfolio by approaching core development through the lens of “big data analytics.”

In a victory for oil and gas producers, a federal district court in Akron, OH, said it believes the Ohio Supreme Court would hold that state law follows an “at the well” rule on leases, which in turn would allow companies to deduct post-production costs.

FERC on Wednesday issued a certificate approving Eastern Shore Natural Gas Co.’s 2017 Expansion Project to upgrade its system in Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Citing Hurricane Harvey, completed asset sales and changes in capital allocation, Chesapeake Energy Corp. on Tuesday revised down its full-year 2017 production guidance by roughly 2%.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Doug Lawler said the independent isn’t currently looking to sell any of its core acreage, but it could conceivably part with one of its “six big powerful assets” where it holds a significant land position.