It News: Chesapeake Energy to raise $6.9 billion from asset sales

September 12, 2012

Chesapeake Energy to raise $6.9 billion from asset sales

Wed Sep 12, 2012

Chesapeake Energy Corporation's 50 acre campus is seen in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, April 17, 2012. REUTERS/Steve Sisney

(Reuters) - Chesapeake Energy Corp said it will sell most of its Permian Basin properties to Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corp and a majority of its pipeline assets to raise about $6.9 billion in cash.

The company, which has been shedding assets to raise cash to meet an estimated $10 billion funding gap, said it would use the proceeds to repay $4 billion of term loans in the fourth quarter.

Chesapeake has been working to sell the Permian Basin assets since February. The company holds 1.5 million acres in the basin, spread across the western part of Texas and the southeastern part of New Mexico.

Chesapeake said on Wednesday it would sell its assets in the southern Delaware Basin portion of the Permian Basin to a unit of Shell. Its assets in the northern Delaware Basin portion would be sold to Chevron. The company said it would raise about $3.3 billion from sale of the Permian Basin assets.

Chesapeake said it would raise $3 billion from selling substantially all of its pipeline and related assets. This comes after the company said in June it would sell its pipeline assets to Global Infrastructure Partners for more than $4 billion.

(Reporting by Swetha Gopinath in Bangalore; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)