Chord Energy closing the book on Whiting Petroleum’s 42-year run in Denver
Houston-based Chord Energy has informed the state that it plans to close its Denver office and lay off 104 employees that it gained from Whiting Petroleum.
“The planned action is expected to be permanent as the Denver Chord Energy office will close in 2023. Some employees at the employment site have received or will receive a transfer offer to relocate to an alternative Chord Energy office,” Jennifer Hunt, human resources manager with Chord, wrote in a WARN letter filed with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
WARN stands for the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification and it requires larger employers to post a notice when they are dismissing a significant share of their workforce. The layoffs are expected to start on Dec. 1 and continue through June 30. The jobs cut cover a broad range of accounting, technology, engineering and administrative positions.
Whiting Petroleum, based in Denver, and Oasis Petroleum, based in Houston, agreed to merge on March 7 in a deal that was described at the time as a $6 billion “merger of equals transaction.” But the elimination of the Denver office, which is much closer to the company’s petroleum holdings in North Dakota and Montana than Houston is, suggests that Oasis is calling the shots.
On July 1, the combined company was rebranded Chord Energy Corp. and began trading on the NASDAQ exchange a few days later under its own ticker, CHRD.
Whiting for years was a mainstay among Denver-based petroleum companies, with roots going back to 1980 when Kenneth R. Whiting and Bert Ladd founded it. The company focused primarily on the Bakken shale formation in the Williston Basin in western North Dakota and eastern Montana, a more remote region where it was harder to get oil and gas to market.
Whiting laid off about a third of its workforce at the time or 254 employees in July 2019. Its outlook took a turn for the worse in early 2020 when spot market prices for oil briefly went negative. The company sought bankruptcy court protection on April 1 of that year listing $3.6 billion in debt and $7.6 billion worth of assets. It restructured and emerged on Sept. 1 with Lynn Peterson as its CEO.
Chord Energy’s Denver office is at 1700 Lincoln Street, suite 4700, and its closure is part of a larger trend that has seen Denver’s importance as an energy hub shrink.
Dan Haley, CEO of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association, said petroleum companies in the 1980s held about half of the office space in Downtown Denver, a share that has dropped closer to 10%.
“Mergers have become a reality for industry here, which has reduced some of that office space, but the political climate and the rhetoric haven’t created a welcoming environment for creating opportunities,” Haley said in an email. “That needs to change. The world needs energy, and as we saw Wednesday. It is incumbent on this country to produce it.”
Haley urged elected leaders in the state to work to make Colorado the energy hub of the West again.
Houston-based Chord Energy has informed the state that it plans to close its Denver office and lay off 104 employees that it gained from Whiting Petroleum.
“The planned action is expected to be permanent as the Denver Chord Energy office will close in 2023. Some employees at the employment site have received or will receive a transfer offer to relocate to an alternative Chord Energy office,” Jennifer Hunt, human resources manager with Chord, wrote in a WARN letter filed with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
WARN stands for the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification and it requires larger employers to post a notice when they are dismissing a significant share of their workforce. The layoffs are expected to start on Dec. 1 and continue through June 30. The jobs cut cover a broad range of accounting, technology, engineering and administrative positions.
Whiting Petroleum, based in Denver, and Oasis Petroleum, based in Houston, agreed to merge on March 7 in a deal that was described at the time as a $6 billion “merger of equals transaction.” But the elimination of the Denver office, which is much closer to the company’s petroleum holdings in North Dakota and Montana than Houston is, suggests that Oasis is calling the shots.
On July 1, the combined company was rebranded Chord Energy Corp. and began trading on the NASDAQ exchange a few days later under its own ticker, CHRD.
Whiting for years was a mainstay among Denver-based petroleum companies, with roots going back to 1980 when Kenneth R. Whiting and Bert Ladd founded it. The company focused primarily on the Bakken shale formation in the Williston Basin in western North Dakota and eastern Montana, a more remote region where it was harder to get oil and gas to market.
Whiting laid off about a third of its workforce at the time or 254 employees in July 2019. Its outlook took a turn for the worse in early 2020 when spot market prices for oil briefly went negative. The company sought bankruptcy court protection on April 1 of that year listing $3.6 billion in debt and $7.6 billion worth of assets. It restructured and emerged on Sept. 1 with Lynn Peterson as its CEO.
Chord Energy’s Denver office is at 1700 Lincoln Street, suite 4700, and its closure is part of a larger trend that has seen Denver’s importance as an energy hub shrink.
Dan Haley, CEO of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association, said petroleum companies in the 1980s held about half of the office space in Downtown Denver, a share that has dropped closer to 10%.
“Mergers have become a reality for industry here, which has reduced some of that office space, but the political climate and the rhetoric haven’t created a welcoming environment for creating opportunities,” Haley said in an email. “That needs to change. The world needs energy, and as we saw Wednesday. It is incumbent on this country to produce it.”
Haley urged elected leaders in the state to work to make Colorado the energy hub of the West again.
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