10-03-2016, 07:59 PM
Death of a Shale Man: The Final Days of Aubrey McClendon
2016-03-09 10:01:03.0 GMT
By David Wethe
(Bloomberg) -- Aubrey McClendon awoke that Tuesday, as he
had 10,000 times before, ready to work a deal.
McClendon, co-founder of Chesapeake Energy Corp., had
ridden more wild ups and downs in America’s energy patch than
just about anyone. But on March 1, as the world closed in on
him, McClendon had something else on his mind. That morning he
was e-mailing about a riverfront development in his hometown of
Oklahoma City, the place where he’d gambled so much for so long.
The 56-year-old sounded upbeat, optimistic -- he sounded,
in short, like himself.
Twenty-four hours later, he was dead.
By now the world knows the broad outlines. On the morning
of March 2, hours after being accused of rigging bids for oil-
and gas-drilling rights, McClendon slipped away from his
security team and climbed into his 2013 Chevy Tahoe. He sped
north along a lonesome two-lane stretch of Midwest Boulevard,
toward the prairie-scrub city edge, where he drove his SUV into
a wall at high speed.
The news reverberated through Oklahoma City like a
thunderclap. There, and as far away as Riyadh and Caracas,
everyone in the energy game knew the backstory. McClendon, the
man who’d told OPEC to go to hell, had vowed to fight the
indictment. Then this: the tragic end to a life that seemed to
epitomize America’s shale boom -- and its bust.
A week on, with many still struggling to make sense of it
all, the circumstances surrounding McClendon’s death are only
now coming into focus. Police in Oklahoma City say they have yet
to determine if the crash, which involved no other vehicle, was
intentional. Emails McClendon sent to business associates hours
before held no clues, no hints of trouble.
"It is hard for us to comprehend that he is really gone,”
Tom Blalock, an executive at American Energy Partners LP, the
venture McClendon founded after Chesapeake ousted him, told the
some four-thousand people gathered at Crossings Community Church
in Oklahoma City on Monday at a public memorial.
Yet, right to the end, McClendon seemed to be hatching
plans.
That was pure McClendon. His rise and fall was the stuff of
legend. He grew to become a towering figure by building
Chesapeake into a $37.5 billion company, thanks to his
championing of controversial hydraulic fracturing. But the very
gas boom he helped create caused prices to plummet, clipping the
company’s value by more than half and triggering a shareholder
revolt that led to McClendon’s ouster.
He then formed American Energy Partners and raised more
than $10 billion to amass drilling rights from the Appalachian
Mountains to Australia and Argentina. But that business, too,
would soon buckle under the weight of collapsing energy prices.
This is the story of his final days, pieced together from
interviews with people who spent time with McClendon or were in
touch with him during his last week of life. The picture that
emerges is one of a man emboldened and energized -- and eager to
turn a new corner.
<snip>
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2...-mcclendon
2016-03-09 10:01:03.0 GMT
By David Wethe
(Bloomberg) -- Aubrey McClendon awoke that Tuesday, as he
had 10,000 times before, ready to work a deal.
McClendon, co-founder of Chesapeake Energy Corp., had
ridden more wild ups and downs in America’s energy patch than
just about anyone. But on March 1, as the world closed in on
him, McClendon had something else on his mind. That morning he
was e-mailing about a riverfront development in his hometown of
Oklahoma City, the place where he’d gambled so much for so long.
The 56-year-old sounded upbeat, optimistic -- he sounded,
in short, like himself.
Twenty-four hours later, he was dead.
By now the world knows the broad outlines. On the morning
of March 2, hours after being accused of rigging bids for oil-
and gas-drilling rights, McClendon slipped away from his
security team and climbed into his 2013 Chevy Tahoe. He sped
north along a lonesome two-lane stretch of Midwest Boulevard,
toward the prairie-scrub city edge, where he drove his SUV into
a wall at high speed.
The news reverberated through Oklahoma City like a
thunderclap. There, and as far away as Riyadh and Caracas,
everyone in the energy game knew the backstory. McClendon, the
man who’d told OPEC to go to hell, had vowed to fight the
indictment. Then this: the tragic end to a life that seemed to
epitomize America’s shale boom -- and its bust.
A week on, with many still struggling to make sense of it
all, the circumstances surrounding McClendon’s death are only
now coming into focus. Police in Oklahoma City say they have yet
to determine if the crash, which involved no other vehicle, was
intentional. Emails McClendon sent to business associates hours
before held no clues, no hints of trouble.
"It is hard for us to comprehend that he is really gone,”
Tom Blalock, an executive at American Energy Partners LP, the
venture McClendon founded after Chesapeake ousted him, told the
some four-thousand people gathered at Crossings Community Church
in Oklahoma City on Monday at a public memorial.
Yet, right to the end, McClendon seemed to be hatching
plans.
That was pure McClendon. His rise and fall was the stuff of
legend. He grew to become a towering figure by building
Chesapeake into a $37.5 billion company, thanks to his
championing of controversial hydraulic fracturing. But the very
gas boom he helped create caused prices to plummet, clipping the
company’s value by more than half and triggering a shareholder
revolt that led to McClendon’s ouster.
He then formed American Energy Partners and raised more
than $10 billion to amass drilling rights from the Appalachian
Mountains to Australia and Argentina. But that business, too,
would soon buckle under the weight of collapsing energy prices.
This is the story of his final days, pieced together from
interviews with people who spent time with McClendon or were in
touch with him during his last week of life. The picture that
emerges is one of a man emboldened and energized -- and eager to
turn a new corner.
<snip>
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2...-mcclendon
