re: Chesapeake Energy...

quote:

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they spend money like drunken sailors on their drilling side. some of what they do would make a CHK investor sick

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They soak outside working interest partners on everything. Pretty much everybody hates working with them and they will over bill you for everything imaginable. Their employees must have a difficult job when all the other companies who hold interest in their wells absolutely hate CHK. They are essentially using their midstream business as a way to pay lower prices to all ORRI, WI, and RI owners, sometimes as much as 1.00 less than Henry Hub and even paying the same owner different prices in the same gas units. It is clearly an effort from upper management as they know that any challenge via lawsuit is going to be difficult to prove because they have so many entities handle gas between wellheads and actual sales points. I've been told from some ex Chesapeake employees that Aubrey learned to operate this way from his Kerr-McGee roots, although there is really no way to verify this. They give tons of money to charities and local non profits to garner positive publicity but then treat their working interest owners and royalty owners in a totally different light. They have a lot of good assets but McClendon is a landman who cannot stop buying land (among other things) and the debt load looks to be like cement shoes holding the company down in a low gas price environment. In short many in the industry will not feel sympathy towards them if they actually get close to going under.