347 Wells Change Hands In The Bakken -- February 1, 2021

In today's Daily Activity Report, a change of operator for 347 wells was noted.

From: Newfield Production Company
To: Ovintiv Production Company

Permits, numbered as low as 11181 and as recent as 37277.

Scanning the list it appears that about 95% were in McKenzie County, the rest in Dunn County. 

From "Bakken operators":

Ovintiv Production, Inc:

• very active in the March, 2020, hearing dockets;
• Ovintiv: already forgot who this is? The old Encana. Link here:
  

Ovintiv Inc. will update investors Wednesday on its progress for the shale oil assets in Oklahoma it amassed after the $5.5 billion acquisition of Newfield Exploration Co. in 2018. The Stack and Scoop fields in the Anadarko Basin have faced investor scrutiny and operational challenges that sent a handful of small explorers into bankruptcy. -- January 30, 2020

• Ovintiv update: Encana Corp. won investors’ approval to relocate to the U.S. and change its name to Ovintiv, a plan that has dented morale in Canada’s beleaguered energy industry; January 15, 2020;
• Encana re-branded as an American company, October 31, 2019;

So, mostly a paperwork exercise following the "strategic combination" of the two companies. From a press release dated November 1, 2018:

Encana Corporation and Newfield Exploration Company today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement whereby Encana will acquire all of the outstanding shares of common stock of Newfield in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $5.5 billion. In addition, Encana will assume $2.2 billion of Newfield net debt. The strategic combination will create a leading multi-basin company and has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies. Subject to receipt of regulatory and shareholder approvals by both companies, the transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2019.

From a Rigzone/Bloomberg article of the same date:

After years of slimming down its oil and gas holdings, Canada’s Encana Corp. is reversing course with a $5.5 billion acquisition of a U.S. shale producer in what will be the company’s biggest-ever deal.

Encana agreed to purchase Newfield Exploration Inc., which will give it positions in the Stack and Scoop shale fields in Oklahoma, the Bakken region of North Dakota and the Uinta play in Utah. The all-stock deal also will create North America’s second-largest shale explorer, the companies said in a statement on Thursday. Encana’s stock plunged the most on record.

The acquisition signals a sea-change for North American oil producers that spent the last few years building so-called pure-play drillers focused on a single shale region such as the Permian Basin on West Texas and New Mexico. For its part, Encana had spent years whittling its holdings to a core group of fields: the Permian, Eagle Ford, Montney and Duvernay.

Since its 2009 spinoff of oil producer Cenovus Energy Inc., Encana has sought to reduce its reliance on gas, and the Newfield acquisition represents the biggest step so far in that direction.

Note: the count may be off by a few. The "347" is what I counted but it could be off by ten or so in either direction. If this is important to you, go to the source.