Chesapeake Energy Corp. , a fracking pioneer, is once again betting big on natural gas after recently emerging from bankruptcy, agreeing last week to buy another gas company to position itself to sell the commodity in Europe and Asia.

Chesapeake, co-founded by the late shale trailblazer Aubrey McClendon, agreed to buy Vine Energy Inc., a gas producer in northwestern Louisiana, in a stock and cash deal valued at about $1.1 billion. The transaction comes six months after Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake emerged from chapter 11 bankruptcy, in which it cut about $7 billion in debt.

The purchase of Vine Energy would make Chesapeake the largest gas company in the Haynesville Shale, a large gas-producing region in Louisiana and East Texas. The assets would provide much of the gas Chesapeake needs to eventually serve foreign markets for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, as demand for the fuel rises overseas, said Mike Wichterich, Chesapeake’s chairman and interim chief executive officer.

“The premier market is going to be the LNG market,” Mr. Wichterich said in an interview. Other countries, he said, “just don’t have the resources the United States has.”

He added, “Let’s start moving in that direction.”

To export natural gas economically, shippers chill the fuel to a liquid state and load it onto tankers for transport.

Mr. McClendon, an early star of the shale boom, staked his fortune on natural gas and became a charismatic pitchman for the fuel. But U.S. natural-gas prices have remained at historically low levels for much of the past decade.

Chesapeake eventually pivoted to tapping shale formations for oil, which turned out to be much more lucrative than gas, but it was far slower than many of its peers in doing so and was stung by an oil price crash in 2018. Chesapeake’s breakneck growth left it highly leveraged, and it filed for bankruptcy last year.

Chesapeake’s renewed focus on gas comes as LNG prices are surging in Asia and Europe, with buyers using the fuel to power the post-pandemic economy and stocking up on supplies for winter.

There are risks. Gas is facing increased competition from renewable energy as solar and wind power and battery storage have become cheaper. Some gas buyers are asking producers to reduce their environmental footprints.

LNG buyers and investors in Asia and Europe have heightened pressure on gas suppliers to curb emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. In response, some U.S. natural-gas companies are deploying drones, planes and specialized cameras to monitor and quantify emissions, and figure out the best ways to corral leaks.

The Louisiana assets that Chesapeake would acquire in the Vine Energy deal are close to LNG shipping terminals owned by the top exporters Cheniere Energy Inc. and Cameron LNG, which have helped make the U.S. one of the world’s leading natural-gas exporters.

Mr. Wichterich said Chesapeake is still in the early stages of planning its entrance into the international market for LNG. The effort will require building new pipelines and arranging sales contracts, for example. But its plan to sell gas overseas will also involve a focus on cutting emissions and having its supplies certified by outside parties as so-called responsibly sourced gas, or RSG. There is no industrywide standard for such gas, but criteria have included methane-leak rates, water-contamination levels and engagement with area residents.

Meanwhile, Chesapeake plans to sell gas to regional utility customers in Louisiana. Mr. Wichterich said utilities have shown interest in scooping up RSG supplies from the Appalachian region.

Mr. Wichterich, who is the chief executive of the oil producer Three Rivers Operating Company III LLC, became Chesapeake’s chairman in February following its emergence from chapter 11 bankruptcy. He became its interim CEO after Chesapeake’s former chief executive Doug Lawler left the company earlier this year.

Chesapeake shares have risen about 30% since mid-February as U.S. natural-gas prices have climbed, briefly topping $4 per million British thermal units last month for the first time since 2018.

Write to Collin Eaton at collin.eaton@wsj.com