Jordan Blum, editorial director, Hart Energy: We're here at Hart Energy’s DUG Appalachia Conference in Pittsburgh. I'm joined by Josh Viets, the executive vice president and COO of Chesapeake Energy. Thank you so much for being here. I know you can't say much about rumors with Southwestern Energy, but if I can get you to talk more about the overall strategy going forward.

Josh Viets, executive vice president & COO, Chesapeake Energy: Well, first of all, I think we should just acknowledge that there's a lot of excitement in this space right now with the recent deals of Exxon and Pioneer, Chevron and Hess. There's just a lot of excitement around it, and so people start to talk a lot about it. We've been active participants in the M&A space. If you think about what we've done with our portfolio over the last two years, acquiring Vine, acquiring Chief, divesting our Powder River Basin assets as well as really getting close down to exiting our Eagle Ford position. So we've really built a portfolio that we're pretty happy with. And so I think the nice thing about that is we simply don't feel any pressure to go out and do any transaction.

JB: And how do you feel in terms of just the 2024 outlook?

JV: I think we monitor the markets, obviously very closely, and there's definitely some things that we see as being a headwind. Just this month we're seeing production at all-time highs, 105 Bcf/d for the month of November. So that's going to add some pressure as we think, as we head into 2024, potentially softening the gas markets a little bit. But we really feel like as a company, we're built for that. Our portfolio, our balance sheet really gives us a true strategic advantage. And if gas prices are a little bit soft into the 2024 ahead of the large LNG pool, we're definitely prepared. We think we're prepared for that.

JB: And can you talk about the dual basin gas strategy Chesapeake has and kind of the bullishness post 2024?

JV: So we're really excited about the portfolio that we've constructed. We think owning assets in both the Appalachia region as well as in the Haynesville, is a real distinct advantage for the company. When we think about our Marcellus asset in northeast Pennsylvania, it has an extremely low-cost structure, a relatively low decline rate. It's one of the more simple assets to own, and what that ultimately translates into is strong margins and really strong cashflow potential. So that's really going to always underpin what we're going to be able to do strategically from a capital allocation standpoint in the company. The Haynesville, on the other hand, does have some complexity with it. It's deep, it's really high temperature, which ultimately translates to a higher cost structure. But the advantage that it has is its proximity to the U.S. Gulf Coast, the access to infrastructure and to be able to take advantage of the LNG demand that we see really starting to grow within the U.S. Gulf Coast.

JB: Well, thank you again so much for joining us here at the DUG Appalachia Conference in Pittsburgh. To read and watch more, please visit online at hartenergy.com.

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