Ovintiv Inc., based in Denver, is an American company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration. The company was previously known as Encana, which, in 2020, restructured from a company domiciled in Canada to a company domiciled in the United States. The company's operations are mainly in the Permian Basin in the United States and in the Montney Formation, where it has a partnership with Mitsubishi, in Canada.
In April 2002, Encana was formed by the merger of PanCanadian Petroleum with Alberta Energy Company. In July 2003, the company agreed to pay $20 million to resolve allegations by the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission that a subsidiary of the company reported false natural gas trading information, including price and volume information, to certain reporting firms in an attempt to skew indexes for its financial benefit.
Between October 2008 and January 2009, in Pouce Coupe, British Columbia, in the 2008–09 British Columbia pipeline bombings, five Encana pipelines were bombed, likely by a disgruntled community member with a grudge against the company. Encana was fined CAD $250,000 under Canada's Environmental Emergency Act after a pipeline rupture near Pouce Coupe released a cloud of gas that contained hydrogen sulfide.
From 2008 through 2010, the company accumulated 250,000 net acres in the Collingwood-Utica Shale gas play in the Middle Ordovician Collingwood formation of the Michigan Basin at an average cost of $150/acre. In May 2012, the company paid about $185 an acre for oil and gas rights on 2,156 acres (873 hectares) at an auction by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, which was "88 percent less than the average paid two years ago in the area".
In November 2009, the company completed the corporate spin-off of its oil business, Cenovus Energy. E-mails between the company and Chesapeake Energy showed plans to divide up Michigan counties state land leases to suppress land prices in an October 2010 auction. In 2013, a private landowner filed suit against the company and Chesapeake for bid rigging. While the case was dropped by the United States Department of Justice, the company was fined $5 million by the Michigan Attorney General, while Chesapeake paid $25 million into a victim-compensation fund.
In December 2012, the company announced a US$2.1 billion joint venture with state-owned, Beijing-based PetroChina through which PetroChina received a 49.9% stake in Encana's Duvernay Formation acreage in Alberta. In 2013, the company moved its headquarters to The Bow in Calgary, a newly completed building which was the tallest building in Canada outside of Toronto.
In September 2017, Hunter Ridge, a subsidiary of the company, was fined $225,000 for a pipeline leak that contaminated water and soil on a big game hunting ranch near Parachute, Colorado. In May 2018, the company permanently ceased production at Deep Panuke. The Deep Panuke project produced and processed natural gas 250 kilometers offshore southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The platform was sent for recycling in 2020.
As Ovintiv (2020-present)
On January 24, 2020, after receiving shareholder approval, the company completed the transfer of its corporate domicile from Canada to the United States. Ovintiv Canada ULC retains an office in Calgary. The shift came after the company's acquisition of Newfield Exploration, after which most of its production was in the United States.[citation needed]
Madawaska Mine sign c. 1985
In June 2020, the company announced layoffs of 25% of its workforce. In February 2022, Ovintiv absorbed former subsidiary EWL Management Limited making it the owner of five decommissioned mines in Ontario: Coldstream Copper Mine, Gordon Lake Mine, Greyhawk Mine (uranium), Dyno Mine (uranium), and Madawaska Mine (uranium) which is being rehabilitated to meet current compliant standards.
In September 2024, Ovintiv paid the United States and the state of Utah a civil penalty of $5.5 million and agreed to implement extensive compliance measures to achieve major reductions in pollutants emitted from 139 of its facilities in Utah to resolve allegations that it failed to comply with federal and state requirements to capture and control air emissions at 22 of its oil and gas production facilities in the Uintah Basin.
Clayton Harvey Woitas, 24 July 2013– 24 January 2020
Clayton H. Woitas, January 24, 2020 – June 30, 2020
Peter A. Dea, June 30, 2020 – current
In popular culture
Encana's hydraulic fracturing operations in the United States are portrayed in the 2010 documentary, Gasland, which alleges that hydraulic fracturing causes pollution of ground and surface water, air, and soil.
US$8.908 billion (2025)
US$1.242 million (2025)
