Monday, February 13, 2012

Natural Gas: "Chesapeake Lays Out Plan to Bridge 2012 Funding Gap; Details Sparse" (CHK)

The news has been out for a couple hours but that's the most honest headline I've seen. The stock is up 24 cents at $22.37 after trading as high as $23.32. This is not a problem that will be resolved in one day.
Natural gas futures are down 3,9 cents at $2.348.
From Morningstar via the Toronto Star:
Chesapeake Energy CHK provided more color Monday on how it intends to bridge the sizable gap between cash flow and investment in 2012, although not much new information was revealed, nor were very many specifics.

First up are $2 billion in planned monetizations of Mid-Continent assets, including a volumetric production payment deal and a financial transaction similar to the one previously executed in the Utica (under which investors owned perpetual preferred shares in a separate subsidiary).

Chesapeake anticipates receiving proceeds from these deals in the next 60 days. The company also announced it is pursuing joint ventures across its Mississippi Lime and Permian Basin positions. Somewhat surprisingly, Chesapeake disclosed a near doubling of its Permian acreage since late last year, to 1.5 million net acres, and announced that it may consider an outright sale of this position if it receives a compelling offer....MORE