The recent massive lease acquisition programs in shales and other tight-gas plays by the likes of Devon Energy Corp., Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Southwestern Energy Co. and Chesapeake Energy Corp. were the largest hydrocarbon land grabs in U.S. history, an acquisition feat similar to the majors' land grab following World War II.

Now, however, the shale land grab is mostly over, says Aubrey McClendon, chairman and chief executive of Chesapeake, speaking at Hart Energy Publishing LP's Developing Unconventional Gas conference in Fort Worth recently.

Companies now established in these plays have their positions locked up and they are fine-tuning their production "factories" to maximize value from the tight gas formations, McClendon said.

Chesapeake is the third-largest company in the Barnett shale play based on its land position of 190,000 net acres, with 499 billion cubic feet equivalent (Bcfe) in proved developed reserves, 642 (Bcfe) in proved undeveloped and as much as 4.64 trillion equivalent in unproved reserves.

It has paid $2 billion through eight acquisitions to hold its stake in the prime Tier 1 area of the Barnett, including acreage beneath the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. In the Barnett core area, it is reaching 2.3 Bcfe per well on 60-acre spacing at a cost of $2.5 million a well. It is running 24 rigs in the play and will increase that to 30 to 35 later this year.

After a less-than-satisfactory experience in the here-today-gone-tomorrow reserves of Texas' Austin Chalk, McClendon says he likes the long-lived, low-decline onshore reserves the company has accumulated in all the major shale plays in the U.S. Chesapeake has positions in the Barnett, the Fayetteville and emerging sales in Alabama and West Texas.

Chesapeake was founded to look for unconventional gas reservoirs; it just didn't know to label them as such back in 1989, he said. As the most prolific driller in the U.S., with about 130 rigs running now, "We are gathering information on one of every seven gas wells in the U.S., one in five if you take out the offshore and wells we don't care about.

"I think we are a gas factory. We use people, science, land and capital. We can produce a stream of gas and use hedging to lock in prices."

He wasn't exaggerating about the factory approach. Chesapeake has 26,000 locations that it can drill at a rate of 2,500 wells per year. And like any good factory, the Oklahoma City-based firm works to hold down costs. It has its own rig fleet and frac crews, and is creating its own rock physics laboratory at headquarters. This will be only the third such lab in the U.S. after those of Core Laboratories and Tetra Technologies.

"We can replace production with new, proved reserves at a two-to-one ratio for about $2 to $2.50 per Mcfe, year in and year out."

Although it will continue to look for acquisition opportunities, the relative magnitude of Chesapeake's deals in the future will be smaller than in the past five years.

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