?Chesapeake Energy Corp., Oklahoma City, (NYSE: CHK) has amended its Haynesville shale joint-venture agreement with Plains E&P Co., Houston (NYSE: PXP). Chesapeake has granted Plains a one-time option to avoid paying the last $800 million of its $1.65-billion drilling carry obligation to Chesapeake, which represents approximately 25% of the original joint-venture transaction. Plains may only exercise the option during the two-week period from June 15, 2010, through June 30, 2010; and if Plains does so, it will be required to convey 50% of its Haynesville shale JV assets to Chesapeake as of Dec. 31, 2010, including all investments in leasehold, production and reserves at that date.
Chesapeake estimates Plains’ investment in the Haynesville assets as of Dec. 31, 2010, will likely range from $3- to $3.2 billion. Until year-end 2010, Plains’ obligations to both pay for 50% of Chesapeake’s drilling costs in the joint venture and participate in each well in which Chesapeake participates remain unchanged and are mandatory.
In other news, New York law firm Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP has filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of purchasers of CHK shares issued in July 2008 in a secondary offering that raised $1.65 billion in gross proceeds. The complaint alleges the registration statement failed to disclose the company’s exposure to gas price declines that were not adequately limited by Chesapeake’s hedging actions; failed to disclose that a significant portion of hedging was done with Lehman Brothers, which would be unable to fulfill its commitments due to its own declining financial condition; and says aggressive hedging had been significantly running up the price of gas and Chesapeake’s stock price, which moves in tandem with gas prices.
Separately, Chesapeake will reorganize its Charleston, W. Va.-based eastern division for the Marcellus shale from a regional headquarters to a field office. Corporate development, midstream and some human resources and land functions will remain in Charleston. Some 215 of the 255 Charleston-based positions will either move to Oklahoma City or be eliminated, with about 40 positions remaining in Charleston.

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