horizontal wells drilled just to the Bossier may not always hold Haynes -
ville rights. Therefore, Chesapeake and other producers have been drilling 
aggressively to hold all rights through the Haynesville before the initial 
three-year term of a typical lease expires. As a result, there has not been 
much drilling to the Bossier to date. However, once our leases are held by 
production (HBP) by Haynesville drilling (we expect to be largely complete 
with HBP drilling by year-end 2011 and completely finished by year-end 
2012), we will begin developing the Bossier Shale more aggressively in 
2013. In the Bossier play, we own 205,000 net leasehold acres and esti -
mate we could drill up to 2,600 net wells in the years ahead. 
Marcellus Shale  — We first became aware of the Marcellus in 2005 
when we were negotiating our $2.2 billion acquisition of Appalachia’s 
second-largest natural gas producer, Columbia Natural Resources, LLC. 
In 2007 we aggressively accelerated our Marcellus leasehold acquisition  
efforts and began to prepare for our first drilling activities. By early 2008, 
we had determined the Marcellus could be prospective over an area of 
approximately 15 million net acres (approximately five times larger 
than the prospective Haynesville core area and 10 times larger than the  
Barnett core area). 
After acquiring 1.8 million net leasehold acres, we entered into a  
joint venture agreement in late 2008 with Oslo-based Statoil, one of the 
largest and most respected European energy companies. In this trans -
action, we sold Statoil 32.5% of our Marcellus assets for $3.375 billion 
in cash and drilling carries. Today, having sold 32.5% of our original 1.8 
million net leasehold acres, we have returned to owning 1.7 million net 
leasehold acres in the play and are the industry’s leading leasehold 
owner, largest producer and most active developer. We are producing 
from more than 100 net wells in the Marcellus on our 1.7 million net acres, 
are currently drilling with 32 rigs and estimate we could drill up to 21,000 
additional net wells in the years ahead. 
Colony and Texas Panhandle Granite Wash  — These 
liquids-rich plays generate the company’s highest returns 
(routinely more than 100%) and provided the inspiration 
for the company to find other liquids-rich plays in 2010. 
The Granite Wash, and other plays with liquids-rich gas 
production streams, provide the strongest economics in 
the industry today because they possess the best of both 
worlds: high-volume natural gas production along with 
significant volumes of highly valued liquids that dramatically increase 
investment returns. 
We are producing from approximately 150 net Granite Wash 
wells, are currently drilling with 16 rigs and estimate we could drill 
up to 1,700 additional net wells on our 215,000 net leasehold acres in 
the years ahead. Based on current NYMEX futures prices for natu -
ral gas and oil, each Granite Wash well should generate approxi-  
mately $11.5 million of present value (or up to an undiscounted  
total of $19.5 billion for all 1,700 wells), making it obvious why finding,  
leasing and developing more unconventional liquids-rich plays was 
Chesapeake’s number one priority for 2010. We were very successful 
2010 ANNUAL REPORT  |  9
The very significant upward  
trajectory of value creation that 
Chesapeake is on today is primarily 
driven by the quality of our assets, 
which feature dominant positions  
in 16 of the 20 most important  
major unconventional natural gas 
and liquids plays in the U.S.
Generating the highest returns in the company, plays like the Oklahoma Colony Granite 
Wash inspire Chesapeake to find other liquids-rich opportunities.