Hart Energy 页岩油和 A&D 高级编辑 Chris Mathews：从钻探阿尔伯塔省第一口气井到发展成为北美最大的多盆地生产商之一。从米德兰到蒙特尼，让我们深入了解Ovintiv。这是您对Hart Energy LIVE和 Ovintiv 总裁兼首席执行官 Brendan McCracken 的 OG 采访。

Brendan，Ovintiv 在过去几年中非常活跃。你在二叠纪已经成长了很多，你已经离开了巴肯。自接任首席执行官以来，它是如何应对这些变化的？

Ovintiv 总裁兼首席执行官 Brendan McCracken：是的。嗨，克里斯。非常高兴今天能够代表 Ovintiv 来到这里。你知道，我很高兴你从公司的历史开始。为我们的世界提供燃料的产品制造历史悠久、令人难以置信、深厚而丰富，正如您所说，可以追溯到 140 年前。你知道，公司历史的主线一直是创新主题，我们不断追求不断革新和改进我们的工作。

正如您所说，我们在那段时间一直非常活跃，但最近也在重新定位投资组合并为未来做好准备。

CM：您谈到了投资组合的变化，并且您最近完成了二叠纪盆地的一项重大收购。您能否向我们介绍一下这种扩张背后的一些原因？

BM：是的，绝对如此。这实际上可以追溯到我们多年来一直追求的战略，我们称之为持久回报。正是这种想法，产生了惊人的即时回报，我们公司今天正在做的事情是一回事。但真正有价值的是能够长期持续地产生这些回报的能力。我们确实已经确定了实现这一目标所需的三个关键要素。这确实是从岩石开始的。首先是获得深度且高质量的优质库存。

然后，持久回报秘诀的第二个要素是我们团队的文化和专业知识，以真正高的投资资本回报率将该资源转化为自由现金流。

第三部分是对我们的资本进行纪律约束。我们生活在一个资本密集型的​​行业。你知道，如果我们明年停止支出，我们的收入就会因为产量的自然下降而下降 35%。因此，我们必须非常自律，不要让资本流失到非生产性用途。因此，我们在几年前就制定了持久回报策略，并着手获取大量增量优质库存，真正使自己与行业其他公司的发展方向区分开来。我们在这一使命中取得了巨大成功，过去几年中，博尔顿交易规模较小，但最近，我们在二叠纪盆地进行了一笔大型交易，在那里我们增加了 800 个优质回报地点。

然后，我们在团队中建立了文化和专业知识，在将资源转化为自由现金流方面确实无与伦比。再说一次，创新的路线和历史确实为我们提供了良好的服务。然后我们创建了一个真正严格的模型来分配我们的资本并确保这些回报流向利润并流向我们的股东。

CM：作为二叠纪交易的一部分，您还退出了巴肯项目。我很好奇，为什么这一举措对 Ovintiv 的投资组合有意义？

BM：是的。再说一次，它确实符合我们的策略，即拥有一个拥有深度和高质量回报选择的投资组合。15 年来，我们每年都会做的事情之一就是一项我们称之为北美资源评估的工作，我们非常详细地为北美的每个生产盆地建立了一个盆地模型。北美。

我们构建了一个场景，在整个生命周期中开发这些盆地。因此，这项工作的其中一件事就是对剩余的优质未开发资源有一个真正深入的了解，我们在巴肯资产中发现的一件事是它变得更加成熟，我们剩余的地点越来越少。在那里发展。对于我们来说，这也是一个次要的位置。因此，让它及时在我们的投资组合中争夺资本是一个挑战。因此，摆脱这种情况并深化我们在二叠纪的地位是有意义的，我们已经拥有非常大的规模和深厚的库存，我们只是增加了它，并通过收购使其变得更好。

CM：您认为随着未来寻找库存深度，二叠纪整合的趋势会持续下去吗？

BM：是的，我认为如果你退后一步，看看该类型中发生的情况，页岩油多年来一直处于全球供应成本曲线的前端。就这样，这部剧开始走向成熟。我们进入了我所说的比赛的中局阶段。我们看到的是，整个行业的库存消耗多于更新。因此，我的意思是，这些页岩油区库存的有机更新不足以满足该行业每年钻井的消耗量。我们要做的就是真正逆流而上，这就是我们在过去几年中取得巨大成功的地方，以有意义的方式深化我们的库存，同时行业正在向另一个方向发展。方向。我们再次思考，回归持久回报策略。我们认为这确实使我们与众不同，并为公司未来的成功奠定了基础。

因此，我们确实认为这是我们所看到的并购和整合驱动力的控制功能之一，我们看到整个行业已经意识到这种现象，并且肯定会出现合并。因此，我们很高兴我们提前了，在这一点上，我们在内部非常专注于执行我们已经到位的资产和投资组合。

CM：Ovintiv 在加拿大阿尔伯塔省和不列颠哥伦比亚省的 Montney 剧区也有很大的影响力。为什么您认为蒙特尼有如此大的上涨空间？

BM：是的。这是一个非常令人兴奋的作品。我认为，当我们审视资源模型并了解优质资源在哪里时，行业中正在慢慢建立一种理解。我想每个人都能回答最大的剩余石油资源盆地是什么。这是二叠纪，我想每个人都会把它挂在嘴边。

但我认为很多人都不会意识到第二大剩余石油资源盆地是什么，它实际上是蒙特尼。当然，蒙特尼河以其天然气资源而闻名，但它实际上是北美第二大剩余石油资源。

我们在石油区和天然气区都拥有巨大的足迹和面积。这是我们的投资组合中真正令人兴奋的事情之一，因为我们展望未来，并看到蒙特尼天然气和石油在本十年余下时间里真正具有建设性的机会。所以这对我们来说是一个传统地位。我们拥有您在蒙尼获得高回报所需的交通和市场准入，以及与之相伴的高质量土地和库存。你知道，这支团队从创新的角度真正引领了这场比赛。

CM：布伦丹，非常感谢您抽出时间。

BM：谢谢，克里斯。欣赏它。

CM：这就是您对 Hart Energy LIVE 的 OG 采访。您可以访问hartenergy.com了解更多信息。 

Chris Mathews, senior editor of shale and A&D, Hart Energy: From drilling some of Alberta's first gas wells to growing into one of the largest multi-basin producers in North America. From Midland up to the Montney, let's take a deeper look at Ovintiv. This is your OGInterview with Hart Energy LIVE and Brendan McCracken, president and CEO of Ovintiv. 

Brendan, Ovintiv has been quite active the past few years. You've grown a lot in the Permian, you exited the Bakken. How has it been managing through the changes since taking over as CEO?

Brendan McCracken, president and CEO, Ovintiv: Yeah. Hi, Chris. Super happy to be here and represent Ovintiv today. You know, I'm glad you started with the history of the company. It's such an incredible, deep and rich history of making the products that fuel our world and dates back, as you said, 140 years. And you know, the through line of that corporate history has been this theme of innovation where we've just had this quest to continuously reinvent and improve on what we do.

And as you said, we've been very active over that time, but also most most recently in repositioning the portfolio and setting us up for the future.

CM: You talk about changes to the portfolio and you recently closed a major acquisition in the Permian Basin. Can you walk us through some of the reasoning behind that expansion?

BM: Yeah, absolutely. It really roots back to the strategy that we've been pursuing for several years now, which we call durable returns. And it's this idea that generating fantastic instantaneous returns, which our company is doing today, is one thing. But what's really valuable is the ability to generate those returns durably over the long term. And we've really identified three key ingredients that we need to do that. And it really starts with the rock. It starts with having access to a deep and high quality premium inventory.

And then the second ingredient in that durable returns recipe is having the culture and the expertise in our team to convert that resource to free cash flow at a really high return on invested capital.

And then the third piece is to be disciplined with our capital. We live in an industry that's very capital intensive. You know, if we stop spending capital next year, our revenues are down by 35% just because of the natural decline of our production. And so we have to be very disciplined to not let capital leak away into unproductive uses. And so we set that durable returns strategy in place several years ago and set about to capture a great deal of incremental premium inventory and really set ourselves apart from the direction that the rest of the industry is going there. We've been enormously successful in that mission, both with smaller bolton transactions over the last several years, but more recently, with a big transaction in the Permian where we added 800 premium return locations.

And then we've built the culture and the expertise in our team that is really unparalleled at converting that resource to free cash flow. And again, that through line and history of innovation is really serving us well here. And then we've created a really disciplined model for how to allocate our capital and ensure that those returns are flowing through to the bottom line and through to our shareholders.

CM: You also exited the Bakken as part of the Permian deal. I'm curious, why did that move make sense for Ovintiv in the portfolio?

BM: Yeah. Again, it really aligns back to our strategy here of having a portfolio that's got those deep and high quality return options. And one of the things that we do every year we've done so for over 15 years is a piece of work that we call the North American resource assessment, where we go in great detail and build a basin model for for every producing basin in North America.

And we build a scenario where we develop those basins out through full life. And so one of the things that falls out of that work is a really robust understanding of where the remaining premium, undeveloped resources and one of the things that we found with our Bakken asset is it was getting more mature and we had fewer remaining locations to develop there. And for us, it was a subscale position as well. So it was a challenge to make it compete for capital out in time in our portfolio. And so it made sense to rotate out of that and deepen our position in the Permian where we had already a very large scale and deep inventory and we just added to it and made it even better with the acquisition.

CM: Do you think this trend of Permian consolidation is going to continue as ps look for inventory depth in the future?

BM: Yeah, I think if you stand back and you look at what's been happening in the play type and shale has been at the front end of the supply cost curve globally for quite a number of years now. And so the play is beginning to mature. We're into what I refer to as the middle innings phase here of the play. And what we're seeing is industry wide, more consumption of inventory than renewal. So what I mean by that is the organic renewal of inventory into these shale plays is not enough to match the consumption that the industry is drilling wells at every year. And what we set out to do is to really swim against the tide, and that's where we've been enormously successful over the last several years to be deepening our inventory in a meaningful way at the same time as the industry is going in the other direction. And we think again, rooting back to the durable return strategy. We think that really sets us apart and sets the company up for success going forward.

And so we do think that is one of the governing functions of the drive for M and A and consolidation that we're seeing, we're seeing the industry wake up to that phenomenon and certainly combinations are coming as a result. And so  we're just glad that we kind of got out ahead of it and at this point, we're pretty internally focused on executing on the assets and the portfolio that we've put in place.

CM: Ovintiv also has a large footprint in the Montney play in Alberta and British Columbia in Canada. Why do you see so much upside in the Montney?

BM: Yeah. And this is a really exciting piece. I think it's an understanding that it is slowly building in the industry as we look across that resource model and look at where that premium resource is. Everybody I think can answer what the largest remaining oil resource basin is. It's the Permian and I think everybody would kind of get that on the tip of their tongue.

But I don't think a lot of people would realize what the second largest remaining oil resource basin is, and it's actually the Montney. And of course, the Montney is well known for its gas resources, but it's actually the second largest remaining oil resource in North America.

And we've got huge footprints and acreage in both the oil side of the play and the gas side. And it's one of the things that really is exciting about our portfolio as we look forward and we see really constructive opportunities for Montney gas and oil through the rest of this decade. And so that's a legacy position for us. We've got the transportation and market access that you need to make high returns in the Montney as well as as the high quality acreage and inventory that goes with it. And the team that, you know, really leads that play from an innovation perspective.

CM: Brendan, thanks so much for your time.

BM: Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it.

CM: That's been your OGInterview with Hart Energy LIVE. You can learn more about at hartenergy.com.