Chesapeake Energy

Transcript:

about three weeks ago the new york times ran a big front page piece about the oil and gas boom here in america. and their quote of the day that day was from aubrey mcclendon, the great ceo of chesapeake energy. talking about all the new oil and gas discoveries here in the united states saying it's the one thing that we've seen in our adult lives that could take us away from imported oil. what if we had found three of the world's biggest oil fields in the last three years right here in the u.s., how transformative could that be for the u.s. economy? the quote took my breath away. but you know what? i don't think i could have said it better myself. we are awash in oil and gas in this country. and chesapeake is at the forefront. they're the single biggest driller in the country. i shouldn't say around the united states. around the world. they're not the biggest driller around the world. but they are the technology leader. chesapeake is the second holder of natural gas and they're moving up the ranks in petroleum. they're hiring like mad. hiring like mad. you hear that? even better, just yesterday chesapeake announced a 17% dividend boost. this is still mad money and the stock yields 2%. you don't raise your dividend like that unless you are confident about your company's prospects. trading $23.30. and i think there's still a lot of up side left in this one because we're producing more oil and gas in this country than anyone thought possible. and chesapeake is a major player and part of that story. we might be able to drill our way out of our addiction to foreign oil or imported oil from countries that aren't friendly to the united states' interests. this is a huge transformative story. we need more people to tell it until everyone realizes how far we've come. that's why i'm pleased to be talking to aubrey mcclendon. welcome back to mad money. good afternoon, jim. aubrey, is it a failure of imagination by the government, is it a failure to understand the technological breakthroughs that chesapeake has had, among others, or is there just some sort of bias against oil itself that's keeping us from rea about? i think it's a little bit of all of the above, jim. for most of our adult lives all we've heard is that america can't produce more oil and that we are beholden to foreign oil producers and will be forever. in fact, we're participating right now in the greatest wealth transfer in the history of the world. i think it's unnecessary because companies like chesapeake and a handful of other independent producers have reinvented the way you find oil and natural gas in the united states through fracing and redirectional drilling. our leaders and the president will start listening a bit more. everything is a balancing act in life. we know that there are some people who believe that fracing is a dirty work. we know there are some people who believe that we heard it all before about our energy policies. but what has changed in the last three years that make it so it's -- the balance is so tipped in favor of letting our energy companies do what they can do to help us? well, i think you have to start with what is it that we do. today chesapeake does drill more wells than anyone else. we are a world technology. our government first needs to recognize that right here in the u.s. be have the best energy technology in the world today. secondly, the government needs to recognize we have enormous resources here in the u.s. for most of the 20th century, of course, we led the world in oil production. while we can't do that any more, we still are the third largest oil producer in the world and can increase our production, i believe, by 2 to 3 to 4 million barrels a day in the next few years by taking advantage of this combination of knowledge that shale will produce oil when drilled horizontally and when using hydraulic fracturing. and the benefits of what we do so far outweigh whatever concerns some people have, that it's really not even a fair fight in my view. but i can expand on that in a minute, if you like. aubrey, what i would tell you is that there's a lot of people that want to put people to work any way possible, low skill job, put them on some payroll. you hire more people than just about anyone i've ever met this year. this takes a lot of people. but when you do go into an area, people get wealthy, people put their kids through school, people are able to retire on what they get. talk about not just the wealth transformation that can keep the money here but what has happened to people who have oil or have jobs from oil. well, let's first talk about natural gas. the price of natural gas down is down two-thirds from 2008. our company is providing to americans a $300 million per day stimulus to the economy by having natural gas prices be as low as they are today. that's been going on for the last two years. and in my opinion, it will go on for years to come. as a consequence of that, that will provide a foundation for an industrial renaissance in the u.s. i talk to john at u.s. steel, talkeded to other -- and d'amico. and all today, fertilizer and steel, all the people that run these companies understand that there's a new dynamic in the world and that american manufacturers have access to the lowest natural gas prices in the industrialized world. let's turn to oil. because until three or four years ago we didn't understand that we could go produce oil out of these ultratight reservoirs that we've known for basically the last six or seven years that we could produce from tight natural gas reservoirs. so what happens? our company has hired 2,000 people in the last 12 months average pay of over $75,000 per year. we'll hire another 2,000 this year, our industry will hire over 100,000. identify an industry in the united states that will add 100,000 jobs a more at $75,000 or more. there would be very few. plus we are creating wealth for land owners and creating new revenue streams for governments and we are reducinging the importation of oil into this country by finding more oil. and right now, remember, we are transferring something close to over a billion dollars a day to foreign countries some of which gets used against us in acts of terror. u.s. energy policy is sad and it's insane, but it does not need to be as ill advised as it has been. there is a new way forward, to use american energy resources in a way that we haven't dreamed possible in the last few years. aubrey, in the short time we have left, you raised the dividend. some people worry about your pay package. i worry about stocks going higher and returning capital to shareholders. that's what you're doing. how can you raise with this big exploration bust. we have plenty of resources to do so. and we'll continue to deliver to shareholders by the net asset value that occurs every kay here. then on a once a year basis we'll try to increase the annual dividend. we haven't done so since 2008. like a lot of companies we feel better about the world than we did in 2009 or 2010. jim, this country does have the ability to create a new energy path forward. more domestic oil production through unconventional resources and to convert our automobile and truck fleet to natural gas through cng and to use gas-to-liquids technology to do so as well. we'll be well on our way to reduction and the possible elimination of foreign oil imports. amazing story. aubrey mcclendon, thank you so much for coming on our show. thank you, jim. a great story, also a money making story. if i thought it wasn't a money making story, i'd keep it to myself. after the break, we'll try to