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CHARLESTON--West Virginia will no longer be home to Chesapeake Energy Corp.'s Eastern Division regional headquarters.
Company CEO Aubrey McClendon announced Feb. 26 that it would shift Charleston from a regional, corporate headquarters to a regional field office as part of a reorganization plan.
As a result, the company will be pulling 215 of its 255 jobs from Charleston by the end of June. Many of the jobs will be relocated to Oklahoma.
"The most unfortunate thing, if you're looking at the extractive industries, is these are $60,000 average jobs with benefits, and they don't come along real easily in this state," said Corky DeMarco, executive director of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association. "These are your little league coaches, people who do things in the community; these are not transient jobs. That's what's devastating to Charleston."
DeMarco said the industry has production jobs, but the "back-office jobs," such as accounting, are harder for the state to hold.
"We haven't done...