What's Up With Chesapeake?

NYT (via yahoo):

The company’s stock, which has lost about half its value over the last year, went into a tailspin late Friday, dropping 14 percent after Chesapeake warned in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it might have to delay the selling of $14 billion in assets to comply with the terms of a critical line of credit. The company, which is based in Oklahoma City, also gave the impression of disarray when it said it would delay releasing its quarterly earnings report, but then filed it anyway just minutes later.
But on Monday, Chesapeake’s chief executive, Aubrey K. McClendon, tried to reassure investors by saying the company was merely postponing the $1 billion sale of future production from its South Texas Eagle Ford oil field along with the spinoff of a drilling subsidiary. He further reiterated that he was fully confident that the company could raise roughly $10 billion from asset sales in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas this year.
“There are lots of options and lots of levers to pull,” he said. “We will get our asset sales done.”
The prize asset up for sale is 1.5 million acres of the Permian Basin, one of the country’s hottest oil prospects, where Chesapeake is the third-largest leaseholder and 12th-largest producer. With 12 rigs but roughly 25,000 well drilling locations already pinpointed, Mr. McClendon said Chesapeake simply did not have the resources to fully exploit the prospect.
“We couldn’t fund it,” he said. “It needs a bigger company.”

I don't understand why Chesapeake was paying so much for leases in the Utica shale in Ohio.  I guess they think there is tons of gas there, but that doesn't explain why they sold a share of their position to Total.  Apparently, they spent too much on leases, and need some serious cash inflows.  That is a hell of a bet to make.  Overall, I'm not too impressed with the corporate leadership.  The CEO is corrupt, and the company looks like some kind of pump and dump operation.