Encana

Creation of the company

In April 2002, PanCanadian Petroleum was spun out of Canadian Pacific Limited. It subsequently merged with Alberta Energy Company to form EnCana. Gwyn Morgan was named president and CEO.

Morgan era, 2002–2005

At a press conference on 25 October 2005, Morgan announced that he would retire from the presidency at the end of the year and that his replacement would be chief operating officer Randall K. Eresman. After his retirement, he would remain on the board. Eresman, a native of Medicine Hat, had begun working for the Alberta Energy Company as a summer student in 1978 and had joined it as an employee in 1980 while studying engineering at the University of Wyoming. When EnCana was created in 2002, Eresman was made president of its Onshore North America division, and in 2003 was made executive vice-president and chief operating officer. Morgan declared his trust in Eresman to lead the company, saying, "you don't put your life and your passion behind something unless you know that you have the right kind of person to carry it on."

Eresman era, 2006–2013

In 2009, EnCana completed the corporate spin-off of Cenovus Energy, which held its oil business, representing one-third of its total production and reserves, and EnCana Corporation retaining the natural gas business. Investors favoured the split as it gave them the flexibility to choose between investing in oil, gas, or both.

In December 2012, Encana 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. This was in line with the rules that "favor minority stakes over takeovers" since Prime Minister Stephen Harper's December 7, 2012 prohibition of purchases by state-owned enterprises seeking to invest in Canadian oil. By the end of 2012, Encana's staff had increased to 4,169 employees.

Encana and Cenovus' headquarters, The Bow in Calgary, was completed in 2013, becoming the tallest building in Canada outside of Toronto. The project, owned by H&R REIT, was announced as Encana's headquarters in 2006, prior to the Cenovus split.

On 11 January 2013, Encana announced that Eresman had tendered his resignation. Although he left the presidency, Eresman remained on the board until the end of February. Upon Eresman's resignation, company director Clayton H. Woitas was made interim president and put in charge of the search for a replacement. Eresman's departure from the company was cloaked in secrecy. After the weekend, Woitas told the media that "Randy was getting fatigued." Asked if the board tried to persuade Eresman to stay, Woitas responded that "it was time to move on with a fresh face representing Encana." In an article in the Calgary Herald, two anonymous analysts thought it likely that Eresman had been asked to resign.

Suttles era, 2013–2020

In November 2013, the company cut its dividend, announced layoffs of 20% of its employees, closure of its office in Plano, Texas, and plans to sell assets and to found a separate company for its mineral rights and royalty interests across southern Alberta. It planned to invest 75% of its 2014 capital budget into 5 projects: Projects in the Montney Formation and the Duvernay Formation in Alberta, the San Juan Basin in New Mexico, Louisiana's Tuscaloosa Marine Shale, and the Denver-Julesburg Basin (DJ Basin) in northeast Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska.

On Thursday, 15 March 2018, Suttles announced to the company's staff that he would be relocating to Denver. He stated the move was for personal reasons. When asked by journalists whether the president's move was an indication the company also would move to the United States, spokesman Simon Scott said "the answer to that is, absolutely not." In November 2018, Encana completed a US$5.5 billion deal to acquire Newfield Exploration of Houston. Before the acquisition, around 60 percent of Encana's production was in Canada; after the acquisition its production became around 60 per cent American. Gwyn Morgan provided a written statement about the deal that read, "I'm deeply saddened that, as a result of the disastrous policies of the Trudeau government, what was once the largest Canadian-headquartered energy producer now sees both its CEO and the core of its asset base located in the U.S." In an editorial he wrote a two weeks later, he said that after stepping down as president in 2005, he "could never have imagined that, a dozen years later, the company would decide to export itself." Meanwhile Ted Morton assessed the purchase, saying, "Encana's announcement that it was acquiring Texas-based Newfield Exploration may be good news for the Calgary-based company, but it is not good news for Canada. It is the most recent chapter in an unfolding story of capital flight from the Canadian energy sector."