Global Infrastructure Partners Acquires Chesapeake Midstream Interest

Chesapeake Energy’s 50 Acre Campus

According to Pam Kasey, writing in the State Journal, Global Infrastructure Partners will purchase all of Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s ownership interest for $2 billion in Chesapeake Midstream Partners LP. This purchase will result in Global Infrastructure Partners, or GIP, owning 100 percent of CHKM’s general partner interest and 69 percent of its limited partner units.

The move is part of Chesapeake Energy’s sell-off of assets to cover its cash shortfall. According to Chesapeake’s website, Chesapeake Midstream Partners, or CHKM, is a master limited partnership between Chesapeake Energy, Global Infrastructure Partners and public unit holders. It has a strong asset base in the Barnett Shale near Fort Worth, Texas, in the Haynesville Shale in Louisiana, in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and in the Mid-Continent region of Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

On its own website, CHKM claims to be the largest gathering and processing master limited partnership in the U.S.

GIP is an infrastructure investment fund founded by Credit Suisse, General Electric Co. and an independent management team, according to Credit Suisse. In two other aspects of a larger transaction, GIP signed an agreement to acquire some midstream assets from Chesapeake Energy’s midstream subsidiary and Chesapeake Midstream signed a letter of agreement to acquire some Chesapeake mid-continent gathering and processing assets.

In the Marcellus, CHKM owns about 47 percent of the Marcellus gathering systems made up of about 200 miles of gathering pipeline. 

The Wetzel County Action Group contested the building of the Pleasants and Miller compressor stations by Chesapeake partners in 2010.  Access to this appeal no. 10-3-AQB is on the web site of the WV Air Quality Board.