Energy companies have until the end of Friday to bid on the oil and gas drilling rights for nearly 340,000 acres of Ohio’s Utica shale. 

The properties are scattered across 19 eastern Ohio counties, including in Summit, Portage, Lorain and Trumbull counties.

About five years ago, Chesapeake Energy began gobbling up the mineral rights to more than a million acres of land in eastern Ohio.  But so far, it’s actually drilled very few wells into the shale.

Now it wants to sell about a quarter of its leases to help pay off its $13 billion debt.

Mark Hanson is an industry analyst at Morningstar and says the sale may just be enough to help with Chesapeake’s cash-flow problems. But with such a limited history of drilling, he says most buyers are going to want a discounted price.