Continental Resources Inc Company Profile

We are an independent crude oil and natural gas company with properties in the North, South and East regions of the United States. The North region consists of properties north of Kansas and west of the Mississippi River and includes North Dakota Bakken, Montana Bakken, and the Red River units. The South region includes all properties south of Nebraska and west of the Mississippi River including various plays in the SCOOP (South Central Oklahoma Oil Province), STACK (Sooner Trend Anadarko Canadian Kingfisher), and Arkoma Woodford areas of Oklahoma. Historically, our properties in Blaine, Dewey and Custer counties of Oklahoma that produced from the Woodford formation were referred to as the Northwest Cana district, while properties often underlying the same surface acreage in those counties that produced from the Meramec and Osage formations were referred to as the STACK district. Such properties were historically combined by us and referred to as "Northwest Cana/STACK". Effective December 31, 2016, we now refer to such properties simply as "STACK". The East region is comprised of undeveloped leasehold acreage east of the Mississippi River with no current drilling or production operations.

We were originally formed in 1967 to explore for, develop and produce crude oil and natural gas properties. Through the late 1980s, our activities and growth remained focused primarily in Oklahoma. In the late 1980s, we expanded our activity into the North region. The North region comprised approximately 61% of our crude oil and natural gas production and approximately 69% of our crude oil and natural gas revenues for the year ended December 31, 2016. Approximately 50% of our estimated proved reserves as of December 31, 2016 are located in the North region. In recent years, we have significantly expanded our activity in our South region with our discovery of the SCOOP play and our increased activity in the STACK play. Our South region comprised approximately 39% of our crude oil and natural gas production, 31% of our crude oil and natural gas revenues, and 50% of our estimated proved reserves as of and for the year ended December 31, 2016.
We focus our exploration activities in large new or developing crude oil and liquids-rich natural gas plays that provide us the opportunity to acquire undeveloped acreage positions for future drilling operations. We have been successful in targeting large repeatable resource plays where three dimensional seismic, horizontal drilling, geosteering technologies, advanced completion technologies (e.g., fracture stimulation) and enhanced recovery technologies allow us to develop and produce crude oil and natural gas reserves from unconventional formations. As a result of these efforts, we have grown substantially through the drill bit.

Despite ongoing volatility and uncertainty in commodity prices, our business strategy continues to be focused on increasing shareholder value by finding and developing crude oil and natural gas reserves at costs that provide attractive rates of return. The principal elements of this strategy include:
Growing and sustaining a premier portfolio of assets focused on high rate-of-return projects. We hold a portfolio of leasehold acreage, drilling opportunities and uncompleted wells in certain premier U.S. resource plays with varying exposure to crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids. We pursue opportunities to develop our existing properties as well as explore for new resource plays where significant reserves may be economically developed. Our capital programs are designed to allocate investments to projects that provide opportunities to work down our large inventory of uncompleted wells, convert our undeveloped acreage to acreage held by production, and improve hydrocarbon recoveries and rates of return on capital employed. While our operations have historically focused on the exploration and development of crude oil, we also allocate significant capital to liquids-rich natural gas areas that provide attractive rates of return.

Optimizing cash flows through operating efficiencies, cost reductions, and enhanced completions. We continue to manage through the current commodity price environment by focusing on improving operating efficiencies and reducing costs. Our key operating areas are characterized by large acreage positions in select unconventional resource plays with multiple stacked geologic formations that provide repeatable drilling opportunities and resource potential. We operate a significant portion of our wells and leasehold acreage and believe the concentration of our operated assets allows us to leverage our technical expertise and manage the development of our properties to achieve cost reductions through operating efficiencies and economies of scale.