Chesapeake Energy Corp. announced Thursday it is selling its interest in about 90,000 acres in the Woodford Shale natural gas field in southeast Oklahoma.
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Houston-based BP America, which already has a presence in the field, is buying the interests for $1.75 billion, officials said.
Aubrey McClendon, Chesapeake's chairman and chief executive officer, said his company was looking to sell its interest in the properties so that it can concentrate on other fields, including a new one announced earlier this year in northern Louisiana and east Texas.
Earlier, McClendon had said the newer field — the Haynesville — is a "major” find that holds between 7.5 trillion cubic feet equivalent and 20 trillion cubic feet equivalent of natural gas.
He said Thursday that Chesapeake already has a working relationship with BP in the Anadarko Basin in Washita County.
"BP has long had a leading position in the Oklahoma natural gas industry, and we are very pleased to see its deepening commitment to Oklahoma,” he said.
BP America officials, meanwhile, said the acquisition puts it in a position to double its existing production from the area, which is part of the Arkoma Basin.
The Woodford Shale properties involved in the sale are in Atoka, Coal, Hughes and Pittsburg counties, company officials said.
Andy Inglis, BP's chief executive of exploration production, said potential reserves within the properties could be as much as 2 trillion cubic feet equivalent.
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About Chesapeake's onshore inventory
Since early 1998, Chesapeake has built one of the largest inventories of onshore leases — about 13.9 million acres — in the U.S. The company has more than a 10-year inventory of drilling locations — about 33,700, its Web site says.
The company is concentrating in conventional gas fields in southern and southwest Oklahoma and southern Texas. Its hottest areas, however, are unconventional shale natural gas fields in central Texas, Arkansas, northern Louisiana and east Texas, and in parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.
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