Yesterday the country’s second largest natural gas producer, Chesapeake Energy, issued its fourth quarter and full year 2017 update. Chessy CEO Doug Lawler began his comments during an analyst phone call this way: “2017 was another foundational year for Chesapeake as we continued to transform all aspects of our company.” Even though Chesapeake sold a number of assets and reduced headcount in 2017, production still rose 3% for the year. Lawler said he expects production to rise another 3% in 2018, even with a planned $2-$3 billion in sales of even more assets (what’s left to sell?). Lawler also said the company will reduce spending 12% this year. The news of production increases on the way using less money sent the company’s stock price soaring 22 higher%. But all is not peaches and cream. The company is still saddled with almost $10 billion worth of debt, which tends to remove the oxygen from a company’s lungs. Still, the Chesapeake doggedly soldiers on. Disappointingly, nothing was said during the conference call about either the Marcellus or the Utica. There’s only two brief references to our region in the official update–even though the Marcellus and Utica combined provided the lion’s share of Chesapeake’s production in 4Q17 (50% of all their production came from the M-U). Chessy says they will drill 55 wells in the Marcellus in 2018 (more than the 43 drilled in 2017), and they will drill 40 wells in the Utica in 2018 (less than the 67 wells drilled in 2017). Below is the full update, the latest slide deck, and a good overview of yesterday’s news from Reuters…
Yesterday the country’s second largest natural gas producer, Chesapeake Energy, issued its fourth quarter and full year 2017 update. Chessy CEO Doug Lawler began his comments during an analyst phone call this way: “2017 was another foundational year for Chesapeake as we continued to transform all aspects of our company.” Even though Chesapeake sold a number of assets and reduced headcount in 2017, production still rose 3% for the year. Lawler said he expects production to rise another 3% in 2018, even with a planned $2-$3 billion in sales of even more assets (what’s left to sell?). Lawler also said the company will reduce spending 12% this year. The news of production increases on the way using less money sent the company’s stock price soaring 22 higher%. But all is not peaches and cream. The company is still saddled with almost $10 billion worth of debt, which tends to remove the oxygen from a company’s lungs. Still, the Chesapeake doggedly soldiers on. Disappointingly, nothing was said during the conference call about either the Marcellus or the Utica. There’s only two brief references to our region in the official update–even though the Marcellus and Utica combined provided the lion’s share of Chesapeake’s production in 4Q17 (50% of all their production came from the M-U). Chessy says they will drill 55 wells in the Marcellus in 2018 (more than the 43 drilled in 2017), and they will drill 40 wells in the Utica in 2018 (less than the 67 wells drilled in 2017). Below is the full update, the latest slide deck, and a good overview of yesterday’s news from Reuters…