Pioneer Natural Resources Company (NYSE: PXD) is an independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company with predominantly onshore operations in the United States, Canada, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, South Africa and Tunisia. Pioneer has a solid foundation of on-shore properties anchored by several key oil and gas fields located throughout the southwest Texas Panhandle and southern Colorado, most notably the Spraberry oil field located in West Texas, the Hugoton gas field located in Southwest Kansas, and the Raton gas field located in southern Colorado.

In 2006 Pioneer abandoned most of its offshore deepwater oil exploration operations, ending a 5-year enterprise with the sale of its U.S. properties and Argentine deepwater operations at a cost of $1.3 billion and $675 million, respectively. Pioneer’s move away from high-risk, high cost operations in favor of lower-risk land based operations is risky, since the demand for offshore deepwater drilling continues to increase and the availability of land based properties is decreasing. Pioneer’s production growth will depend on its ability to effectively reinvest capital from its offshore sales into promising land based resource basins.

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