Kohlberg Kravis Roberts Teams Up With Chesapeake Energy

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (K.K.R.) has teamed up with Chesapeake Energy

in order to invest in oil and natural gas projects in the U.S. According to

, the companies will between them invest $250 million in the endeavor, and K.K.R. is providing 90% of the funding. CHK will source, manage and acquire the projects. “As the largest oil and gas leasehold owner and most active driller in the U.S., we are uniquely well positioned to leverage our operating footprint to pursue profitable and related business opportunities,” Aubrey K. McClendon, chief executive of Chesapeake, said in a statement. “We are delighted to partner with K.K.R., a leading investor and partner to the energy industry, to expand our royalty acquisition business.” K.K.R. is not the first private equity firm to show an interest in the energy sector. At the end of February, the Blackstone Group announced that it had invested $2 billion in Cheniere Energy. At the Raymond James Institutional Investors Conference, President on Investor Relations Jeff Mobley said that CHK is proud of the debt reduction initiatives that it's made. “We've completed about 70% of our overall objective to reduce our debt, over a two-year time frame, by 25%. Last year we reduced our long-term debt from $0.73 per unit of proved reserves to $0.55 per unit of proved reserves and we're well on our way to taking those metrics to investment grade by the end of this year.”