The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake, a major natural gas producer, has saddled itself with unreported liabilities through off-balance-sheet financing stretching over the next decade.

Critics say that the lowest natural gas prices in a decade have left the company scrambling for short-term liquidity. To generate short-term cash, Chesapeake entered into transactions known as volumetric production payments on company wells. The VPPs are similar to debts, with the interest payments made in fuel rather than cash.

Such transactions are an accepted practice in energy production, said Neal Dingmann, managing director of equity research for SunTrust.

"In the case of Chesapeake, the most important issue in the next six months is liquidity," he said. "I am more concerned about the near-term liquidity than I would be about how something like this would be viewed, on or off balance sheet. Their cash flow will be a direct result of gas prices -- if I could push off current liquidity concerns until gas prices hopefully return, I would do so."

Chesapeake said its use of VPPs has been fully disclosed and is well known.

"The VPPs monetize assets in the ground, creating value for our shareholders and the company has fully accounted for VPPs in our estimates of operating cost of wells," Chesapeake spokesman Michael Kehs said.

The Journal reviewed documents in county courthouses in four states and reported that the financial commitments are larger than once thought. They also may not be fully understood by investors and analysts, the paper said.

Moody's Investors Service also raised concerns about the VPPs in lowering its outlook on the company's $12 billion in debt to "negative" from "stable." It said it considers the VPPs debt, even though they aren't carried on Chesapeake's balance sheet. "The company's already diminished cash flows are vulnerable to further declines in natural gas prices and it remains dependent on completing asset sales and other financing transactions," Pete Speer, Moody's vice president, said in a statement.