Chesapeake Files for Bankruptcy -- Good Riddance
On Sunday, June 28, Chesapeake Energy filed for bankruptcy. The restructuring comes at the end of a long fall for the second largest producer of natural gas in the country for years. It is a fall that a lot of people in Fort Worth — and elsewhere — are celebrating.
When the shale drilling boom began in Colorado, it didn’t take long to inch its way east, toward Texas. Chesapeake, Devon, XTO, and others scrambled to lease land on which to drill. By 2006, Fort Worth already had 440 producing gas wells, mostly on public lands or on the edge of town. Mayor Mike Moncrief was all for it. He said the money from gas leases on city land and the revenue from monthly royalties on every well in the city would bring us untold wealth. We’d be rich as a city, and the people who participated would receive mailbox money every month.
Landmen, whose job it was to secure leases on land that could then be sold to a gas company, promised regular checks. They were careful not to promise specific amounts but always suggested that there was nothing like going to your mailbox to find a check in there.
Initially, several companies vied for the rights to drill Fort Worth’s Barnett Shale, but Chesapeake’s co-founder and CEO, Aubrey McClendon, won the day, and by 2008, his company was doing the majority of gas drilling here. His plan was ambitious: The company could envision more than 4,000 wells beneath city streets and parks, golf courses, and supermarkets.
Read more: https://www.fwweekly.com/2020/07/08/chesapeake-files-for-bankruptcy-good-riddance/
= new reply since forum marked as read
