A natural gas drilling site in the 5,000-square-mile Barnett Shale (AP file photo/Donna McWilliam)
Chesapeake Energy Corp. said Tuesday it will eliminate 70 jobs in North Texas as it cuts back on natural gas drilling operations there.
The company currently has two rigs drilling in the Barnett Shale of North Texas, down from 44 in 2008, its peak level of activity in the natural gas play.
Low natural gas prices have sent the nation?s second-largest producer of the resource after Exxon Mobil Corp. into scrambling to shift toward more lucrative oil and natural gas liquids drilling.
Chesapeake has had to fund that transition largely through debt because of poor returns from the lowest natural gas prices in a decade. The company has drilling lease holdings in 15 plays across the country and is planning to sell some of them to cut debt and fund an aggressive transition to more liquids production.
The jobs being eliminated represent 8 percent of the company?s North Texas workforce and will come out of ?support departments such as public affairs, marketing communications, community relations, legal, land, land administration, administrative services and information technology,? according to a memo sent to employees from Julie Wilson, Chesapeake?s director of urban development.
Other employees have already been transferred to ?more prolific shale plays? or to the Chesapeake headquarters in Oklahoma City, Wilson said.
The company?s North Texas workforce will now total about 700, she said.
?This is still a significant number of jobs in our local economy and of course our activities will continue to support many hundreds more indirect jobs,? Wilson said.
Shares in Chesapeake jumped $1.04 Tuesday, to close at $18.71.
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