Rick Muncrief
Editor's note: This profile is part of Hart Energy's 50th anniversary Hall of Fame series honoring industry pioneers of the past 50 years and the Agents of Change (ACEs) who are leading the energy sector into the future.
Rick Muncrief joined a struggling WPX Energy as CEO in 2014 when the shale producer had a gas-weighted portfolio and an uncertain basin strategy.
“We were in seven different basins at that time. The Permian was not one of those,” Muncrief said dryly in a recent interview with Hart Energy.
Muncrief grew up in the Permian and he saw the massive basin’s vast potential through the shale boom.
He methodically, but rapidly, built up WPX through West Texas and New Mexico’s liquids-rich Delaware Basin, which had yet to become the hottest play on the planet in 2015. Now, he remains focused on the Delaware as the jewel of a multi-basin portfolio after WPX combined with Oklahoma City rival Devon Energy in a $5.75 billion, so-called merger of equals.
Muncrief took over as the president and CEO of the expanded Devon when the deal closed in January 2021.
Muncrief promotes a bold and decisive acquisition approach while still holding dear to strategic and conservative fiscal values. He positioned WPX in the Delaware—while divesting in gassy, noncore areas—and is now further diversifying the merged Devon in the Williston and Eagle Ford shale plays through the recent acquisitions of RimRock Oil & Gas and Validus Energy, respectively, in 2022.
“We feel like the multi-basin, multi-commodity business is the one that’s going to be successful over the long haul,” Muncrief said, noting Devon’s other positions in the Powder River and Anadarko basins. “We all recognize the strength of our Delaware position, but we also know there’s opportunities in these other basins, especially if you’re in the core like we are.”
Neal Dingmann, Truist Securities energy analyst, said Muncrief was able to successfully pivot WPX to become a leader in shareholder returns at a time when investors were finally forcing producers to practice discipline. And that strategy is continuing at Devon.
“He’s a very disciplined CEO,” Dingmann said earlier this year. “The top leaders are great operators and they understand Wall Street—that’s a tough combination. Rick kind of checks all those boxes.”
Muncrief quickly made waves in 2021 at Devon by announcing a then-pioneering dividend strategy—a fixed-plus-variable dividend—that was quickly followed by others making similar moves, such as Pioneer Natural Resources and ConocoPhillips.
Looking back and forward
Born in Ardmore, Okla., Muncrief moved to Odessa, Texas, in 1958—before he was old enough to remember—after his father started working in the Permian for El Paso Natural Gas.
They would later live in the Delaware Basin in Hobbs and Jal, N.M.
Stationed at Devon’s headquarters in Oklahoma City today, Muncrief left the Permian to graduate from high school in Oklahoma and to attend Oklahoma State University, where he naturally majored in petroleum engineering technology.
Among other stops, Muncrief loosely followed his father’s legacy, working his way up at El Paso, its acquirer, Burlington, and then ConocoPhillips, which ultimately swallowed up Burlington. In 2009, he eventually took over as senior vice president of operations and resource development at Continental Resources. And then his bigger break came in 2014 through WPX.
WPX spun off from midstream operator Williams Cos. at the end of 2011 so it could concentrate on exploration and production. The company promptly struggled with a lack of crude oil exposure and challenging natural gas prices.
In mid-2015, after oil prices had plunged, WPX made its first move to buy privately held RKI Exploration & Production for $2.35 billion because of its 92,000 acres in the Delaware in Texas’ Loving County and New Mexico’s Eddy County. The Delaware growth continued from there.
“It’s driven by the geology and the amount of raw resources in the Delaware,” Muncrief told Hart Energy. “The Permian is a place we’re very, very comfortable with and very, very proud of."
Five years later, it turned out that the RKI deal made the Devon merger more practical. Much of RKI’s acreage bordered Devon’s position.
That proved imperative in 2020 when Devon and WPX took action in an industry that initially halted all dealmaking during the pandemic.
“During the pandemic, we felt like everyone was on their back heels. They were afraid to make a move,” Muncrief said. “At Devon and WPX, we felt like there were things that each of us needed. For WPX, we needed a little more scale and inventory. Devon was concerned about a lot of exposure to federal lands. At WPX, we didn’t have as much.
“That’s where it was truly a win-win.”
—Jordan Blum, editorial director