History
The company was founded in 1989 by Aubrey McClendon and Tom L. Ward with a $50,000 initial investment. McClendon named the company due to his love of the Chesapeake Bay region. Ward left the company in 2006 to establish SandRidge Energy.
In 1993, the company became a public company via an initial public offering, valuing the company at $25 million.
Focusing on a strategy of drilling horizontal natural gas wells in unconventional reservoirs, the company built a sizable position in the Golden Trend and Sholem Alechem fields of South-central Oklahoma and in the Giddings field of Southeast Texas.
In the mid-1990s, the company attempted to extend the Austin Chalk play into western and central Louisiana but struggled to do so.
In 1997, the company wrote down the value of its assets by over $200 million (approximately equal to shareholder's equity at the time) due to low commodity prices and implemented a turnaround plan.
In the early 2000s, after a rise in natural gas prices made it economically feasible, the company focused on unconventional drilling in carbonates, tight sandstone, and shale particularly in the Barnett Shale, Fayetteville Shale, and the Marcellus Formation.
In 2006, the company was added to the S&P 500 Index.
In 2008, the company announced its discovery of the Haynesville Shale in East Texas and northwestern Louisiana.
In 2009, the company celebrated its 20th anniversary by partnering with Orange County Choppers to create the world's first chopper powered by compressed natural gas.
In June 2012, in response to shareholder concerns about corporate governance issues under McClendon's watch, the company appointed Archie W. Dunham as chairman, while Aubrey McClendon remained CEO.
In December 2012, the company sold midstream assets for $2.16 billion.
Effective April 1, 2013, Aubrey McClendon was forced to leave the company after revelations that he took a personal stake in Chesapeake wells and then used those investments as collateral for up to $1.1 billion in loans from banks that also financed the company.
In May 2013, Robert Douglas Lawler, an executive of Anadarko Petroleum, was named CEO of the company. In 2018, Lawler's compensation was $23 million.
In 2013, Chesapeake sold 55,000 net acres in the Northern Eagle Ford Shale and 9,600 net acres in the Haynesville Shale to EXCO for aggregate proceeds of $1 billion.
In December 2014, Chesapeake sold a large portion of its oil and gas assets in the Marcellus Formation and Utica Shale to Southwestern Energy for net proceeds of $4.975 billion. The transaction included approximately 413,000 net acres and 1,500 wells in northern West Virginia and southern Pennsylvania. Net production of the sold assets was 57,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in December 2014.
In 2014, the company also sold additional midstream assets for $520 million.
In September 2015, the company announced layoffs of hundreds of people in Oklahoma City.
On March 2, 2016, former CEO and co-founder Aubrey McClendon died in a single-occupant single-vehicle crash when he drove his vehicle straight into a concrete bridge embankment in Oklahoma City. It occurred the day after a United States Department of Justice federal grand jury indicted McClendon for violating antitrust laws during his leadership at Chesapeake.
In 2017, the company sold assets in the Haynesville shale for $465 million.
In January 2018, the company laid off 400 employees.
In the first quarter of 2018, the company sold assets in Oklahoma for $500 million.
In February 2019, the company acquired Texas oil producer WildHorse Resource Development for $4 billion in cash and stock.