INEO Way
By now you’ve no doubt read that Okla. City-based Chesapeake has sold another large chunk of its Eagle Ford position for $1.4 billion, raking in $2.8 billion in sales there so far. This, after announcing last August the company would sell its Eagle stake and exit the crude oil stage altogether to spend more time romancing its natural gas assets in the Haynesville and Marcellus.
Reese Energy Consulting today is studying Chesapeake’s latest buyer, UK-based INEOS (INspec Ethylene Oxide and Specialties), the world’s fourth-largest global chemicals company that happens to share Chesapeake’s love affair with gas.
Founded in 1998 by British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, INEOS is a conglomerate of 36 businesses that include INEOS Oil and Gas in the UK and Denmark with an emphasis on natural gas production. Here at home, INEOS in 2013 launched the nation’s first commercial-scale biorefinery in Florida that annually produced 8 million gallons of ethanol and 6 MWs of electricity. That facility was later sold. INEOS last December inked a 20-year agreement with LNG exporter Sempra for 1.4 MPTA in Phase 1 and 0.2 MTPA in Phase II at Sempra’s proposed Port Arthur, La., terminal.
As for Ratcliffe, he’s currently bidding for majority ownership of soccer club Manchester United.