Canadian has sights set on Devon’s top job

Gary Park

Petroleum News Calgary correspondent

A 52-year-old Calgary lawyer has turned the tide by ascending the ladder and taking over the president’s job at Devon Energy, the largest U.S.-based independent producer.

Reaching such heady heights is believed to be without parallel for a Canadian and puts John Richels within reach of eventually succeeding Larry Nichols, Devon’s co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer.

Richels joined Devon when it completed a C$2 billion merger in 1998 with Northstar Energy and moved up to president of the Canadian units in 1999.

That in itself was rare for U.S.-based companies, which have preferred to send executives from the United States to run their Canadian operations.

Oklahoma-based Devon opted to retain a 100 percent Canadian management team to run its substantial Canadian operations, which were further bolstered when it acquired Anderson Exploration in September 2001.

That deal gave Devon Canada the largest holding of exploration licenses in the Mackenzie Delta and shallow water Beaufort Sea and extensive interests in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin.

Its production for the third-quarter of 2003 averaged 761 million cubic feet of gas per day, 37,400 barrels of oil and 12,700 barrels of natural gas liquids.

In addition, it recently filed regulatory applications for its Jackfish oil sands project in northeastern Alberta. The C$400 million-$450 million venture is designed to produce 35,000 barrels per day of bitumen over 25 years.

More than any other company, Devon under Nichols has ignored the Canada-U.S. border in moving the company into a fully integrated North American energy market. Richels said Nichols’ philosophy has been to view North America as “one big basin,” where the 49th parallel is just a line on the map.