Earnings Labs

Expand Energy Corporation (EXE)

Q4 2010 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 23, 2011

$101.10

+4.27%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Chesapeake Energy's 2010 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Operational Update and Earnings Result Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jeff Mobley. Please go ahead, sir.

Jeffrey Mobley

Analyst · Simmons & Company

Good morning, and thank you for joining our 2010 fourth quarter and full year earnings conference call. With me today is Aubrey McClendon, our Chairman and CEO; Nick Dell'Osso, our Chief Financial Officer; and Steve Dixon, our Chief Operating Officer. Our prepared remarks should last about 15 minutes and then move to Q&A. And I'll now turn the call over to Aubrey.

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt

Great. Thank you, Jeff. Good morning. We hope you've had time to review Monday's Fayetteville sale announcement along with yesterday's operational and financial release. We are very pleased with our 2010 results as well as the results from our Fayetteville sales agreements with BHP. Our sale of the Fayetteville strongly validates a critical point we have made for some time. The assets of our company are worth far, far more than what is implied by our current stock price even after the $10 round in the past few months. As first announced on January 6 of this year, Chesapeake has moved into a very exciting phase of our company's history. During which our 25/25 Plan will deliver to investors investment-grade balance sheet metrics resulting from reducing our long-term debt by 25% and best-in-class production growth of 25% during 2011 and 2012. The effect of achieving these two objectives will also accelerate the rapid transition of our capital spending towards higher value liquids-rich plays will be completely transformative for Chesapeake in its investors in the years ahead. And we're certainly off to a fast start in implementing this plan in the first two months of this year. We will continue to focus on profitably harvesting some of the great assets we have gathered in over the past few years. Looking forward to the next five years, through an accelerated development drilling program that is increasingly directed to liquids-rich plays, we believe we can generate $10 billion to $11 billion of EBITDA in 2015. If we are able to do so, then we should be able to increase our enterprise value to a range of $70 billion to $80 billion versus our current enterprise value of about half that. We have the strategy, the land, the science, the people and the capital…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we'll take our first question from David Heikkinen with Tudor, Pickering, Holt. David Heikkinen - Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc.: Can you guys talk about the infrastructure needs and current capacity or bottlenecks and then capital costs in the emerging oil plays, the Eagle Ford, Niobrara and anything in the Permian?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt

David, in general, we certainly are cognizant of all the problems getting oil out of those areas, but have a multi-capacity approach to do so. Obviously, you can move oil about three different ways, you can move it by truck, you can move it by train, you can move it by pipeline and obviously, pipeline is the ultimate answered choice for all of these plays and we have a very big and active marketing group and midstream group and they are attacking all these areas with all the resources that we have, as well as some third-party partners. So we built in the delays into our production ramp up forecast that are embedded in new plays where we have efficiencies like in Eagle Ford, trucking oil for up to 400 miles round trip today whereas within a year or so we'll have our pipelines in there, Steve, what's the...

Steven Dixon

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt

Yes, pipelines will be in '13 with rail hopefully in this year.

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt

So we're trucking today, we go to rail and ultimately a pipeline. That's kind of three phase approach to each of these areas that we're talking about. Obviously, if you've got a truckload of tank on the back, it's a good time to own that asset. David Heikkinen - Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc.: Can you talk about kind of lumpiness for those plays when do you get the rail capacity? What is that capacity now, how much capacity you have for trucking? I'm just trying to think about as we model and kind of run out 2011, 2012, 2013 as each of these plays kind of grows?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt

Well, I think that's really highlights the advantage of our business strategy, David, that we're in so many different plays that I don't think you're going to see lumpiness in our production. You'll certainly see lumpiness in some plays, but that's drive some the benefit of the multi-play approach. So we think when you look at our production forecast, there will be some quarters that will be growing at different speeds then the surrounding quarters. But generally speaking, it's a linear growth model that we'll be reporting, we think. And again, some bigger delays in some areas than in other areas, but overall, to have that asset diversification we think is equally important. David Heikkinen - Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc.: And then just thinking about your commentary around the macro and just wanted to think about overall operating costs and margins for a typical gas well in your portfolio versus one of new typical oil wells. If you just walk us through what is the cost structure of each and kind of where is the margin Delta?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt

Sure. If you look at finding costs, which I guess is a place to start, our finding costs are going to be somewhat higher in our oil plays and that can be no higher to as much as 25% to 50% higher and then lifting costs typically in an oil well are going to be around 50% higher or so just kind of depends on how much of the liquids come with substantial gas production as well. Beyond that, it's really about same. So we think if you -- let's just say, you're finding gas at $1.25 in Mcf and that translates into oil of $7.50 a barrel. It probably means you're finding oil in the $10 to $11 range and it's one of the reasons why of course we always want carries because of the initial years of a play, we certainly want more of those costs will be borne by our partners rather than by us. David Heikkinen - Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc.: And then on the financial side, you guys have used a lot of your revolver capacity in the past and have run kind of $300 million to $500 million of availability. Now that you're getting cash in the Fayetteville, and you're going to payback $2 billion to $3 billion of senior notes, how do you think about using your revolver and then kind the capacity on that heading forward?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt

I'll let Nick answer, but obviously it'll be greatly reduced as a result of what we'll be doing this year and next year. Domenic Dell’Osso: Yes, David, so that's right. I mean, we had about $600 million available on our revolver at December 31. The proceeds of this transaction will immediately be applied to the revolver as all of our incoming cash proceeds for deals like this. We will tender for some bonds and so you'll see the revolver go zero and then tick back up to some usage and it will continue to be our working capital facility, which will be utilized higher sometimes than others but it will be less overtime that it has been over the last year or so. David Heikkinen - Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc.: And then just pursuit of investment grade status is also around that, now is it?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt

What's the question David? David Heikkinen - Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc.: The pursuit of investment grade? Domenic Dell’Osso: David, we certainly are still very focused on targeting investment grade metrics. We try not to predict when the rating agencies will react. We did receive a positive outlook from S&P when we announced our intent to sell the Fayetteville. So we're hopeful that we will continue to work with the agencies and get some nice credibility for what we've done. But not wanting to try and predict what and when their actions will be to our program. Although, we are attacking both the numerator and the denominator of the debt-to-proved reserves which we believe is the key metric that they look at relative to Chesapeake and its peers. And so debt coming down and proved reserves going up pretty rapidly. We think we're headed in the right direction.

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from Brian Singer with Goldman Sachs.

Brian Singer - Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

First, what drove the gas guidance increase if we exclude the Fayetteville sale that you're gas production got increased a little bit and maybe that provides opportunity to run through your key gas and liquids plays and update us on any changes to where you may be seeing better gas productivity or a greater contribution from associated gas?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Just really results of kind of running ahead of our model and so you can suppress the model so far and so long, I guess. So really all our plays continued to work exceptionally well, we'll be very sad to see the Fayetteville go. Second, unconventional gas resource play and very important part of our understanding of unconventional resources in the U.S. But I wouldn't attribute it to any particular play. Although, it was obviously been strong commentary the last couple of days about what we're seeing in the Marcellus and while that play is not vital or critical to us, it is to a couple of our competitors, certainly, the EURs that are being reported in Southwestern PA and in Northeastern PA we were experiencing those very same EURs as well. So basically, wherever we're drilling today, we think we're outperforming our models and so from time to time, we'll probably see our production tick up. And that's why we give a pretty good range of what the outcome could be in 2011 and 2012 from a production forecast. But we remain focused on reaching that 25% growth rate over the next two years with roughly a third of it coming in 2011 and roughly 2/3, 2012. I think perhaps most important takeaways is to examine what the company's underlying structural rate of growth is and that's really about 20% per year. And for a company of our size to be able to grow at that rate is quite extraordinary and it's going to be driven by an ongoing success in our gas plays along with these liquids plays as well.

Brian Singer - Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

And the Granite Wash and Colony Wash, can you talk to what you've seen from recent well results of your acreage position, what percent do you have actually, you've confirmed the 155-acre density assumption?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

I don't know if I have a percentage. Steve may, but just generally, just to recall, Colony Wash is a play we discovered in 2007 and kicked off the whole horizontal Granite Wash play, and for those of you who may not be familiar with it, Colony Wash in Washita County and Custer County in Western Oklahoma. And then the play that's received probably most publicity because so many companies are in it. Whereas we own about 85% of the Colony Wash, Granite Wash play, we'll be the Texas Panhandle Granite Wash play. We've read over the last couple of days commentaries from some other companies there, we haven't expressed or we haven't experienced some of the issues that perhaps other companies have. I think we've been more conservative in our production forecast and, frankly in our management of our wells. And so we're still you said 155 acres, I guess, we call it 168 acre infrastructure to four wells.

Steven Dixon

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Average than of multitude of plays of Anadarko Basin.

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

What percentage do we want to go with here guys? On acreage? Domenic Dell’Osso: For the Granite Wash in Texas Panhandle basically 100% of our acreage is proven to be prospective and then in the Colony Wash. I guess around 80% of our total acreage is listed there is probably going to be perspective at the end of the day. We kind of working on some of the fringe acreage, right now.

Brian Singer - Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Just looking at your total acreage, the 13.2 million versus the 13.8 million from the end of the third quarter, not too big of a change adjusted for the Fayetteville sale, can you just talk to the acquisition spending during the quarter and just some color there?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Sure. Most of our spending during the fourth quarter would have been finishing up in the Eagle Ford and Niobrara in preparation for our JVs. And then we have continued to build acreage in a million-acre play that will be talking about more as the years wears on. Those are the three big areas of spend for us throughout all of 2010. The fourth quarter was no different going forward in 2011, our spend should be at least I would guess 2/3 less than what it was in 2010.

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from David Kistler with Simmons & Company. David Kistler - Simmons & Company: Looking at your 159 rigs that you guys are operating right now, as we look at the Niobrara JV being completed, the Fayetteville sale done, do you have any kind of revision towards how you're looking at those rigs being directed from a liquids perspective and a gas perspective over the next year or so?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · Simmons & Company

Jeff, let's see, this is Slide 14, I'm just going to let Jeff walk you through it and if anybody's following online, it's Slide 14 in our slide show presentation.

Jeffrey Mobley

Analyst · Simmons & Company

David, in the slide show you'll see really kind of four lines in the lower left hand corner of that graph. And then basically what it illustrates is, pretty level load of drilling in the Marcellus and Barnett particularly as we utilize our drilling carries. The dry gas plays will begin to ramp down the middle of this year particularly in the Haynesville Shale as we've accomplished a lot of our HBP drilling objectives. We'll continue to grow our liquids plays most notably in the Eagle Ford and the Niobrara. And if you really think about the growth in our drilling program from the beginning of 2010, obviously a year ago to the end of 2012, we will add approximately 120 -- nearly 120 rigs for that program and if it was a stand-alone company, that would be the biggest drill in America besides Chesapeake and that's just in our liquids play and that encompasses pretty much all of our drilling except for about three rigs in the deep Anadarko-Springer play. David Kistler - Simmons & Company: And kind of building on a comment that you made, Aubrey, about being in Trucking business. Right now, it's a great business to be in, obviously, Rig business has been attractive as we're watching capital get deployed to the oil areas and more rigs going to work everyday, are those areas that you would look at spending at any particular time, given the large ownerships there and the attractive market conditions right now?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · Simmons & Company

Let me first make a comment on what we're doing with our vertical integration and I'll turn it over to Nick to mention to you several ideas that will range from nothing to doing something more dramatic, I would guess. So let's review. I think we're the fifth-largest drilling contractor in America with over 100 rigs today. We'll continue to gradually add rigs to our inventory over time. We believe were the largest oilfield truckers. We, at this point, do not have the capacity to haul oil but we are working aggressively on becoming an oilfield trucker of actual oil. And we are the second largest compression company in America, but [ph] obvious kind of void in our vertical integration story is in hydraulics, fracturing which we have drilled I guess synthetically through ending 26% of Frac Tech. So in addition to looking at ways to monetize that investment in this year, we are also building our own in-house capacity to hydraulically fracture wells and every day right now we need, I guess, just under 1 million horsepower to run our business and it's just so happens that Frac Tech has just about that same amount, maybe a little bit less. And so we're going to start by building four spreads this year and gradually building it out over time. We think this really will help the industry by bringing costs down, but also allow us to control more of our destiny. When we're all done, one could argue that inside of Chesapeake, you might have the largest U.S. service company out there when you combine our compression and our rigs and our frac-ing and our trucking and we also have a huge oilfield tool and Equipment Rental business as well. So lots of optionality embedded in that and I'll…

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from Neal Dingmann with SunTrust.

Neal Dingmann - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst · SunTrust

Aubrey, I had a question on your slides. I guess most recent slides shows on one of these about the Permian mid-continent wells doing over 1,000 barrels and I just wondered if you could comment, it does look like you are starting to see some really ramp up in the number of these areas like the horizontal Mississippian, Avalon, Bone Spring, et cetera. I just wondered if you could comment on just how much more I guess those results to continue to explode?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · SunTrust

Neal, our operations team never likes to talk about our production exploding, so I'll talk about it increasing rapidly perhaps. Clearly, we've had a commanding presence in the Anadarko for over a decade and the Anadarko is really one of the most prolific gas well basins of the countries ever enjoyed discovering. And we started with the Granite Wash in 2007 and then in 2008 and '09, basically, we and everybody in the industry started to look very closely at all the tight rock in the Anadarko Basin. And so formation such as the Cleveland and the Tonkawa began to be looked at and since that time the information is like the Hawk Shooter and the Web Fork [ph] get looked at. We're very, very pleased with our Cleveland and Tonkawa results. Last time I checked we controlled, I think close to 1,000 sections of leasehold that would be perspective for those formations we think and that continue to be active in acquiring leasehold. The Anadarko of course is different than the Eagle Ford and Niobrara and Williston in some other places where there wasn't a whole lot of production and you just went in and went on county after county, buying new lease holds in the Anadarko, it's really square mile by square mile down in the trenches and providing for operations, and mostly sections are HBP are many of them are on legacy assets that we own. So we're pleased with that. Mississippian, we're in the Western part of the play, all of our friends are in the Eastern part of the play and we're lighter out to the east. So not quite sure how that's going to work. But certainly, we look what we've seen in the West. We also do have a high-water cuts, we've got to deal with that. But Oklahoma is a pretty favorable location to be dealing with water, there's plenty of electricity handy. And also, disposal wells are easily drilled and permitted and drilled as well. So 1,000 barrels a day equivalent wells are certainly what we're shooting for and all three of those plays. Permian, really same thing, four plays that we're looking at are stronger, Bones Spring, the Avalon, the Wolfcamp and the Wolfberry really in two basins, I guess, the Delaware is Avalon and Bone Spring and then Wolfcamp, Wolfberry in the Permian Basin. And again the goal remains the same, 1,000 barrels a day in tight rock, not all of it of course are sold, most of these are just tight sand, so we're encouraged by what we're seeing and have huge acreage position in each of these plays and will be steadily ramping up in all eight of these plays. Individually, it don't get as much attention as some of the bigger shale plays. But collectively, are certainly very, very important basins for us as we move forward converting our production base from gas to more oil.

Neal Dingmann - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst · SunTrust

And one last one if I could, Aubrey. I heard yesterday when your competitors talked about a new completion process in the Eagle Ford, just wondered if you could comment kind of around your process. You continue to see obviously quicker well -- better well results both on the cost side and just on the processes I wondered if you could comment on the Eagle Ford or a couple of your other liquid plays, it's the different things that you're doing in completion side along that front that you'll continue to see these results increase?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · SunTrust

Sure. I'll turn the call over to Steve.

Steven Dixon

Analyst · SunTrust

Neal, Steve Dixon. We're always looking for improvements and we're fortunate to have a number of plays and lots of wells drilled to experiment and we always try to optimize our completions. We don't believe that there is any silver bullet on any new product. Schlumberger had a fiber prop and transport assist product for a while and you may have some applications in someplace, but it's really not we think will be a game changer. But there is improvement being implemented all the time. Cost savings was high [ph], it's been a tough year on stimulation on the cost side. But again, we're very fortunate to have lots of data more than anyone else and I always trying to have continuous improvement.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from David Tameron with Wells Fargo.

David Tameron - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Just stepping back, I just want to focus a little more on the macro stuff you talked about, why there's been too much focus on liquids what are you seeing? I know you went to the points, but are you seeing something today different than what you saw three months or six months ago that gives you more encouraged or we just getting closer to that inflection point? I'm just trying to understand that gas commentary today and what's changed at all?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Well, first of all, and I doesn't have to spend much time making the bull case for oil. We're living it and breathing it as we all watch TVs and see what's happening around the world. But even away Mid East turmoil, you had $90 oil before that started. Clearly, we've got U.S. issue, short-term issue on the differential between WTI and what we think over time there's so much money in that arbitrage that it will get close it's just a matter of time. So plenty of money to be found in oil and we've known that for a long time, but I don't think we in the industry understood until a couple of years ago about how you found a lot of oil in the U.S. and then discovery and the ability to move oil out of these unconventional reservoirs is certainly a game changer for our company and certainly I think will be for the industry as well and as enormously positive implications for our country and perhaps we can lower oil imports in the future and create some great paying jobs here. I threw in the natural gas commentary, because it's really is true that we have really seen the whole tone of investor calls and interest in our company change really since the start of the year with regard to natural gas and last year, there were ample reasons for everybody to be bearish about natural gas and to think that just terrible product and you'll never going to make any money on it. But today, we really do have a lot inbound traffic with people seeing that we're kind of wondering when the worst is over. So they have their reasons and we developed our own reasons. And I think the most important of…

Operator

Operator

Our next question is Curtis Trimble with MKM Partners.

Curtis Trimble - MKM Partners LLC

Analyst

Just kind of following up with what Dave was talking about, sending it internationally can you engage in a little bit of conversation of anything that you've looked at across the ocean, not necessarily the South African component, but the European, et cetera?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt

Curtis, we're not doing anything internationally today and can't imagine that we ever would, given the inventory of projects that we have. We did spend two years with Statoil, commencing in November of '08, looking around the world at unconventional gas prospects and I think we ended up evaluating something like 170 basins around the world. And it looks like there's a lot of potential when you first start. But when you recognize that you got to have the right kind of rock, you've got to have reasonable commercial terms, you've got real loft after having indigenous gas demand, indigenous gas pipeline, capacity and have to have indigenous service company infrastructure. The world strengthens pretty rapidly. The others and lot of guys looking at Poland and Ukraine and India and China and all that, but we've never could see how unconventional gas project around the world could compete with one of ours here in the U.S. More importantly, about halfway through that exercise, we discovered that we could find unconventional oil in the U.S. and we quickly arrived at the conclusion, with further conclusion that no international gas project could ever compare with the U.S. oil project. And that's why you have BHP here and that's why we have Reliance here that why you have seen out like Total is here. It's why Statoil is here, and a lot of Koreans are here and it's why the world is coming to the U.S. as we have unlocked the key to the most profitable oil development projects in the world. And clearly, the people are evidencing that by opening their checkbooks and again it's something that we're proud and pleased to be part of and I think it will revalue assets because obviously gas assets are undervalued in the eyes of these big major companies and they're going to snap up the number of these. I think that will reprice U.S. E&P companies and then I think you're going see to start to buy oil projects, overall. So I think it's just a terrific time to be long. Oil and gas process in the U.S. and there be a day when gas gets a little more respect, just reiterate that we have no interest in international projects, we got decades and decades worth of activity right here in America.

Curtis Trimble - MKM Partners LLC

Analyst

I meant more on the market development side, figuring out additional uses of gas there driving your CGV commentary with the U.S., that type affecting the other side of the equation, not just on the supply side but also on the demand side.

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · Tudor, Pickering, Holt

Sure. There are a lot more CG cars and trucks around the world than there are here in America. We are encouraging OEMs who make factory ready for CMD cars and trucks around the world to do so here. GM's already come out with two models. Ford and GM are both planning more models in the years ahead. So the U.S. is behind for various reasons, but I really do think that we'll catch up and we're going to be forced to catch up when gasoline prices start to become a major topic of economic and political concern here in the weeks and months ahead.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our next question from Dan McSpirit with BMO Capital Markets.

Dan McSpirit - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

I wondered if you can share your thoughts on the decision to sell the Fayetteville shale assets. Why were they chosen versus other natural gas assets in the portfolio? Was it they simply didn't compare as favorably to those other assets just simply on a return point of view? Or was it an asset that set the specific needs of BHP, the buyer in this case, and it came down to simply right time and right place?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Well, if you could examine what we had, we had four big unconventional assets, Fayetteville, Marcellus, Haynesville and Barnett. And when we looked - we, first of all, look at what fit us rather than what might fit another company, and we were looking for an asset divestiture about this size to achieve our 25/25 objectives. The Marcellus is way too underdeveloped at this point considering kind of the sale there and the asset size there we knew would limit the number of buyers that would have a price tag of well north of $10 billion. The Barnett is embedded inside the urban and suburban environment in Fort Worth. And Total got comfortable with being our partner there, but it's a tough place to be an operator. And so it didn't really think that, that would be one that would attract worldwide interest in the asset. And then finally, the Haynesville we're not through HBP and still got the Bossier to develop. And again, it's a huge well north of $10 billion asset as well. So circle back to the Fayetteville, rightsize largely HBP, great asset, great returns in a state that's receptive to natural gas drilling from a regulatory and environmental perspective and we felt like we didn't know when we started out, we didn't know who would be interested, but we felt like a wide variety of companies. So we're really, really happy with the outcome, really happy with BHP. It's kind of in charge of assets for most people, maybe it's the price the world's fourth most valuable company and the company with enormous resources. And obvious ambitions and they're going to do a great job with this project and we're going to spend the next year making sure that there's no hiccups when we do the handoff. They've got a great asset, they've got a great price for it and we were able to sell a great asset at a great price for us. That's one of the situations where I think both companies can walk away the better for and at this point we've done the gas assets selling that we need to do and now it's power forward and concentrate it on the 25% production growth now that we pretty much are going to have the 25% debt reduction part of the planned in the bag.

Dan McSpirit - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Referring to your proved and unproved resource table in the press release, when will we begin to see the data field in under the Powder River and DJ Basin potential or is the timing just simply dependent on a JV? And is there any Niobrara well data that you can share with us today that speaks to the resource potential, especially at the low GOR variety?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Sure, Dan. On Page 15 on our slide presentation, I think the last couple of months, we've highlighted a couple of frontier in Niobrara wells, up in the Powder River Basin. I don't think we publicly announced anything in the DJ yet, but we'll start to fill in that data during the remainder of 2011. We don't like to put out a lot of information about risk factor or anticipated density per well when we've only drilled a couple of dozen wells. So we certainly have those assumptions in house and obviously it will confirmed by CNOOC when they became our partner there but that's for public disclosure. It will take a little bit more time in 2011. And of course, one of the great things about that play is there's a lot of industry activity as well. So like the Eagle Ford, you're going to get really kind of tidal wave, if you will, of information get releases on those plays over the remainder of the year.

Dan McSpirit - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

You spoke at the top of the call about your participation in certain LNG and GTL projects. Any additional texture or color you could share?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

None other than, I think it's well known that we've been working closely with the Chinear [ph] trying to provide them with the supply assurance that they need to attracts off takers to their proposed facility and so we'll see where that ends up taking it. But clearly, we've exported every other product of significance in America and we export gas everyday to Mexico and to Canada by pipeline and we've exploited LNG from Alaska for decades. So we think the time has come to begin exporting gas from the form of LNG, from the point of Gulf Coast. With regard to GTLs, we're very excited about the possibility of the chemical transfer transformation natural gas to oil. Obviously, the world has being doing it in some form or fashion for the last 70 years, but we're looking for real breakthroughs in a process that heretofore is pretty energy intensive consumer as much as 40% of the natural gas in the process is converting it into a liquid. We think it's really interesting idea and we're in communication and dialogue with people about how we might contribute in gas to a venture that could prove that up. And that's the Holy Grail. If we can make a $4 product competitive with $15 product or substitutable for a $15 product, then we will have made an enormous contribution to our industry and our company shareholders as well. So we got a whole group set up to do nothing but pursue breakthroughs and evaluating people who come to us with potential breakthroughs in GTL technology. So very excited about it and I think there'll be one in the next couple of years that will lead to a GTL, commercial GTL projects in the U.S. by year-end 2016.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our next question from Marshall Carver with Capital One Southcoast.

Marshall Carver - Capital One Southcoast, Inc.

Analyst · Capital One Southcoast

You spent a lot of time in your concluding remarks at the Analyst Meeting about how much value Chesapeake was creating, buying acreage and then JV-ing at a big profits. And then you switched strategy somewhat and the stocks respond marvelously with the new 25/25 Plan. Just a question on, did you think basically the land grab is somewhat over for both oil and gas? And did that pay a part of your plan or was it much more --- a big part of it was the harnessed the evaluation gap between where you thought your assets were working with the stock was trading. But what are your thoughts along the land grab and where that stands and then beyond 2012, what are your thoughts on acquiring acreage, your plans basically outlined the next couple of years, but Chesapeake has certainly created a lot of value over the last couple of decades acquiring acreage. What are your thoughts over the midterm, the 2013s and 2014s?

Aubrey McClendon

Analyst · Capital One Southcoast

Good way to conclude the call and kind of wrapping all this up. I really would like for you to think about the 25/25 Plan as not a abrupt change from what we were doing in 2010, but really, a natural evolution from what we were doing in 2010. And to give you just some context, in 2006, 2007, we realized that we could find natural gas in enormous quantities in unconventional reservoirs, primarily shales and we recognized that this was such a game changer that the opportunity wouldn't last very long. And so we went out and spent billions of dollars to acquire that gas leasehold and then quickly de-risk it by bringing in the partners that I've mentioned on this call. And I do think the gas -- I did think the land rush was over in 2008, but I didn't have enough faith I suppose or vision to recognize that our operational team and other companies would be able to take that expertise in that technology and apply it to unconventional reservoirs of which shale of course is just one. And so when that became obvious to me in 2009 and all of a sudden, we could change the product that our assembly lines in our gas factory was making to something more highly valued in the form of oil and natural gas liquids, then it wasn't a difficult decision to make that transition away from just sole focus on gas. So we did that in 2010 and it's expensive on a net basis we spent almost $5 billion doing that. We stretched investors patience, I think, and clearly stretched our balance sheet a bit to do that. But to have not done it would have been a huge mistake and instead this call would have all…

Operator

Operator

And that does conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation.