NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK) - Get Report are down 2.48% to $13.94 in afternoon trading today as oil prices decline.

Both benchmarks are down, with West Texas Intermediate down 1.56% to $47.42 at 1:56 p.m. in New York, while Brent fell 1.23% to $57.17.

Global oil prices weakened on Thursday, erasing early gains in volatile trading before the expiry of their front-month contracts and in fears of a supply build at the delivery point for U.S. oil, Reuters reports.

U.S. crude prices are down after market data provider Genscape estimated a stock build of 2.2 million barrels since Friday in the Cushing, OK delivery point for oil, traders told Reuters.

This adds to the supply weighing on the industry, reported yesterday, when the U.S. Energy Information Administration said U.S. crude stockpiles rose by 4.5 million barrels last week.

"The Cushing estimate shows more of the same old for U.S. crude, intense amounts of supply and shaky demand," Again Capital partner John Kilduff told Reuters.

Chesapeake Energy is a producer of natural gas and liquids. The company's exploration and production segment is responsible for finding and producing natural gas, oil and natural gas liquids (NGL). It owns interests in approximately 47,400 natural gas and oil wells.

Separately, the average recommendation of 26 brokers' estimates is a 2.6, with a 2 representing an "outperform" rating and a 3 a "hold," according to Reuters. The mean price target is $20.56.

TheStreet Ratings team rates CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP as a Hold with a ratings score of C+. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP (CHK) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed, some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and compelling growth in net income. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including weak operating cash flow and a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself."

Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:

• The revenue growth greatly exceeded the industry average of 19.8%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues rose by 11.2%. Growth in the company's revenue appears to have helped boost the earnings per share.
• The debt-to-equity ratio is somewhat low, currently at 0.68, and is less than that of the industry average, implying that there has been a relatively successful effort in the management of debt levels. Along with the favorable debt-to-equity ratio, the company maintains an adequate quick ratio of 1.09, which illustrates the ability to avoid short-term cash problems.
• CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP reported significant earnings per share improvement in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. The company has demonstrated a pattern of positive earnings per share growth over the past two years. However, we anticipate underperformance relative to this pattern in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP increased its bottom line by earning $1.83 versus $0.68 in the prior year. For the next year, the market is expecting a contraction of 82.0% in earnings ($0.33 versus $1.83).
• CHK's stock share price has done very poorly compared to where it was a year ago: Despite any rallies, the net result is that it is down by 34.00%, which is also worse that the performance of the S&P 500 Index. Investors have so far failed to pay much attention to the earnings improvements the company has managed to achieve over the last quarter. Turning toward the future, the fact that the stock has come down in price over the past year should not necessarily be interpreted as a negative; it could be one of the factors that may help make the stock attractive down the road. Right now, however, we believe that it is too soon to buy.
• Net operating cash flow has decreased to $829.00 million or 21.27% when compared to the same quarter last year. In conjunction, when comparing current results to the industry average, CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP has marginally lower results.
• You can view the full analysis from the report here: CHK Ratings Report