Earlier in June, while trying to locate the successor to a longtime employee at Chesapeake Energy on behalf of a client, I asked a friend at another energy company if he knew whom I should contact. “I don’t know,” he responded, “I stay far away from Chesapeake.”
That attitude said a lot about Chesapeake, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday. It also highlighted two problems that have bedeviled the shale companies since the industry’s inception – an inability to work together and an inability to police its own.