Chesapeake Energy to sell acreage in the Haynesville Shale area

Chesapeake Energy Corp, the second-largest US producer of natural gas, yesterday struck a deal to sell a part of its acreage in the Haynesville Shale area to a private company for $450 million.

Included in the sale are approximately 78,000 net acres, 40,000 net acres of which the company considered as core acreage. The sale also includes 250 wells currently producing approximately 30 million cubic feet of gas per day, net to Chesapeake.

In addition, Chesapeake, which has been trying to reduce its massive $9-billion debt, is marketing approximately 50,000 net acres located in the northeastern part of its Haynesville Shale operating area, which the company also expects to close in the 2017 first quarter.

Following both of these planned divestitures, Chesapeake will retain approximately 250,000 net acres in the core of the Haynesville Shale.

"With this proposed transaction and our previously announced Devonian asset divestiture, the company has reached approximately $2.0 billion gross proceeds from divestitures either signed or closed in 2016, excluding certain volumetric production payment repurchase transactions. We expect this total to grow in the 2017 first quarter with our second proposed acreage sale in the Haynesville,'' said, Doug Lawler, CEO of Chesapeake.

''With our long-term target of $2 to $3 billion in debt reduction, we will continue to look for opportunities to accelerate value through the sale of additional non-core assets in 2017 and beyond," he added.