He chose the name for the company out of a liking for the Chesapeake Bay area, despite the company's Oklahoma roots. From Oklahoma, Chesapeake Energy's gas pipelines grew toward the Chesapeake Bay like a mycelium seeking humid climes to sprout its mushrooms. After the fracking potential of the Marcellus Shale became known, the company surged further, to Pennsylvania. The pipeline assets were spun off years ago and now belong to Williams.
With the current demise of fracking due to the inability of the market to support the infrastructure and loss of investor interest, many natural gas companies will go under. The price of natural gas should rise, however, once the markets have sloughed off the non-performing suppliers. As coal is replaced by natural gas electricity generation, demand for gas should continue to grow. The long-term damage to prices that Tverberg expects for oil may not apply to natural gas.
While the Chesapeake Bay region may have been the divining rod for Aubrey McClendon's vision of where Chesapeake Energy should go, it is there that he met the greatest opposition over the environmental repercussions of fracking. Fracking has emboldened the U.S. to rescind laws against oil exporting and to build natural gas export facilities, such as the Cove Point Plant expansion underway a few miles from my home. Aside from the public outcry against fracking, there are geological limits, climate considerations for which we are now internationally accountable, and the impending economic recession wrought largely by the same commercial ennui that brought about the energy price slump. Fracking may never come back. Cove Point may never export any liquefied natural gas.
