# Devon Energy

Devon Energy Corporation is a company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration in the United States. It is organized in Delaware with operational headquarters in the 50-story Devon Energy Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Its primary operations are in the Barnett Shale STACK formation in Oklahoma, Delaware Basin, Eagle Ford Group, and the Rocky Mountains.
In 2023, the company was ranked 216th on the Fortune 500 and 445th on the Forbes Global 2000.
As of December 31, 2023, the company had proved reserves of 1,817 million barrels of oil equivalent (1.112×10$^{10}$ GJ), of which 43% was petroleum, 28% was natural gas liquids, and 29% was natural gas.

## History

Devon was founded in 1971 by John Nichols (1914-2008) and his son, J. Larry Nichols. In 1988, the company became a public company via an initial public offering.
In October 2012, the company completed construction of its current headquarters, the 50-story Devon Energy Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and closed its office in the Allen Center in Downtown Houston.
In August 2015, Dave Hager was named president and chief executive officer of the company.
In February 2016, Devon announced plans to lay off 1,000 employees, including 700 in Oklahoma City, and cut its dividend as part of a cost-cutting effort due to low prices of its products.
In November 2019, a blowout at a Devon natural gas well prompted authorities to seal off thousands of acres of land near the Eagle Ford Shale towns of Yorktown and Nordheim until the well was capped.

### Acquisitions

| # | Year | Company | Price | Description of Assets |
| 1 | February 1992 | Hondo Oil and Gas | $122 million | Oil and gas reserves and seven natural gas processing plants |
| 2 | January 1996 | Kerr-McGee | $250 million | North American onshore oil and gas properties; 370,000 net acres of undeveloped drilling rights |
| 3 | July 1998 | Northstar Energy | $750 million | Oil and gas properties in Canada |
| 4 | August 1999 | PennzEnergy | $2.2 billion | Oil and gas properties in the Gulf of Mexico |
| 5 | May 2000 | Santa Fe Snyder | $3.35 billion | Oil and gas properties in the Permian Basin, Rocky Mountains, and the Gulf of Mexico |
| 6 | September 2001 | Anderson Exploration | $4.6 billion | Oil and gas properties in Canada |
| 7 | August 2002 | Mitchell Energy | $3.1 billion | Oil and gas properties in the Barnett Shale of Texas |
| 8 | April 2003 | Ocean Energy | $5.3 billion | Deepwater sites in the Gulf of Mexico |
| 9 | May 2006 | Chief Oil & Gas | $2.2 billion | Barnett Shale leaseholds |
| 10 | February 2014 | GeoSouthern Energy | $6.1 billion | Eagle Ford assets |
| 11 | October 2014 | Crosstex Energy | | Merger of midstream assets to form EnLink Midstream, LLC |
| 12 | December 2015 | Felix Energy | $2.5 billion | Oil and gas properties in the Powder River Basin and Anadarko Basin |
| 13 | January 2021 | WPX Energy | $2.56 billion | Oil and gas properties in the Williston Basin and the Permian Basin |
| 14 | July 2022 | RimRock Oil and Gas | $865 million | Williston Basin assets |
| 15 | September 2022 | Validus Energy | $1.8 billion | Eagle Ford assets |

### Divestitures

| # | Year | Buyer | Price | Description of Assets |
| 1 | March 2010 | BP | $7 billion | Assets in Brazil, Azerbaijan, and the Gulf of Mexico |
| 2 | April 2014 | Canadian Natural Resources | C$3.125 billion | Conventional assets in Canada |
| 3 | June 2014 | Linn Energy | $2.3 billion | 900,000 net acres in the Rockies, Mid-Continent, east Texas, north Louisiana, and south Texas |
| 4 | July 2017 | Penn Virginia | $340 million | Lavaca County assets in the Eagle Ford |
| 5 | June 2019 | Canadian Natural Resources | C$3.8 billion | Assets in Canada |

## Political activity

Devon contributed over $1 million in each of the last 3 U.S. election cycles, almost entirely to organizations and individuals affiliated with the Republican Party.
After agreeing with the Obama administration to install systems to control the illegal emission of hazardous chemicals, Devon backed out of such agreements during the Trump administration due to rollbacks of environmental regulations.
Devon and its lobbyists have been noted to have close ties to government officials. In 2014, an investigation by The New York Times uncovered that a three-page letter signed by Scott Pruitt, then the Attorney General of Oklahoma, to the United States Environmental Protection Agency advocating for a relaxing of laws related to hydraulic fracturing was actually written by lobbyists for Devon Energy and not by Pruitt.