LITTLE ROCK — Chesapeake Energy
earns $180 million Chesapeake Energy Corp., the natural-gas producer that has agreed to sell $7.65 billion in assets in the past five months, posted a fourth-quarter profit as it ramped up its oil production.
Net income was $180 million, or 28 cents a share, compared with a $524 million loss, or 84 cents, a year earlier, Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake said Tuesday in a release.
Chesapeake, the second-biggest U.S. producer of natural gas, plans by 2012 to double the percentage of its output from crude in 2010. The benchmark gas price in New York fell 21 percent to $4.41 in 2010. Crude oil was trading at 24 times the price of gas on Tuesday, the highest ratio since 1992, according to a Bloomberg calculation.
On Jan. 6, CEO Aubrey McClendon said Chesapeake would cut its debt by 25 percent over two years, while increasing production by 25 percent.
On Monday, the company announced it was selling its entire 487,000-acre operation in Arkansas’s Fayetteville Shale to Australia-based BHP Billiton Ltd.
Graphic Packaging
to shut down plant
Graphic Packaging International Inc., a Georgia-based subsidiary of Graphic Packaging Holding Co., is closing its Jacksonville plant, according to a release Tuesday.
Efforts to determine the employment level at the facility were unsuccessful.
“As always, GPI deploys business to our most cost effective plants,” David Scheible, president and chief executive officer, said in a company news release. “We continually evaluate all of our business operations to ensure we are serving our markets as efficiently as possible,” he said.
During the next several months the plant will continue to operate as it moves equipment to other U.S. locations, the company said.
State index dips 4.55 as 13 stocks decline
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, dropped 4.55 to 212.90 Tuesday.
“The U.S. stock market suffered its biggest drop of the year on escalating tensions in the Middle East and North Africa,” said Chris Harkins, senior vice president and managing director of Delta Trust Investments Inc. in Little Rock. “The Arkansas Index slipped lower as only three stocks moved higher, while 13 declined.”
J.B. Hunt Transport Services fell 3.7 percent,Harkins said.
Dillard’s followed closely, finishing off 3.6 percent, Harkins said.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.
Business, Pages 25 on 02/23/2011