New venture for Chesapeake

Article Excerpt

CHESAPEAKE ENERGY $33.72 (New York symbol CHK; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (405-848-8000; www.chkenergy.com; Shares outstanding: 706.0 million; Market cap: $21.7 billion; Dividend yield: 1.0%) will invest up to $1 billion over the next 10 years in companies that are developing ways to replace gasoline and diesel with cleaner-burning natural gas. Chesapeake will make these investments through a new fund, Chesapeake NG Ventures Corp. It will start by investing $305 million in two firms: First, it will invest $155 million in Sundrop Fuels Inc., a company that plans to build a plant that makes transportation fuel from plant fibre and agricultural waste. Second, Chesapeake will invest $150 million in Clean Energy Fuels, which builds fuelling stations for heavy trucks that run on gas instead of diesel. Some of these investments will be risky, but they only represent 1% to 2% of the company’s estimated annual drilling budget. Chesapeake is still a buy. buy…