Chesapeake may have made its natural gas bed, but that doesn’t mean the company intends to sleep in it.

That was one of the takeaways from CEO Aubrey McClendon’s standing-room-only Howard Weil Energy Conference presentation in New Orleans March 26.

America’s Champion of Natural Gas is now looking to champion natural gas demand even while cutting 50 rigs out of its gas drilling efforts and reducing 2012 dry gas capital spending, net of drilling carries, by 70% to $900 million.

It’s the smallest amount the profligate Oklahoma City independent will ...