trading name penn west exploration type public traded as tsx pwt nyse pwe industry oil and natural gas founded calgary alberta canada 1979 headquarters headquarters in calgary ; oil and gas wells throughout western canada key people david roberts president ceo products oil and natural gas number of employees 1 300 2014 1 website www.pennwest.com penn west exploration ltd. previously known as penn west energy trust still when referred to as penn west petroleum in the media examples needed was a prominent mid sized canadian oil and natural gas production company based in calgary alberta . for a while when it was one of the s & p tsx 60 the sixty largest companies on the toronto stock exchange . from 2005 2011 it was a canadian royalty trust canroy and as such did not pay federal income taxes . 3 4 with a market capitalization in january 2008 of approximately us 9.5 billion it was the largest oil and gas energy trust in north america . penn west exploration was previously an independent exploration and production company named as penn west petroleum ltd. in may 2005 it converted into an income trust and operated under the trade name as penn west energy trust . this was an entity which pays the majority of its earnings directly to shareholders known as unitholders in a trust in the form of dividends . penn west has acquired several other income trusts since reorganizing as a trust in 2005 vault canetic and petrofund . these acquisitions made it the single largest energy trust on the continent . 5 in january 2011 penn west petroleum ltd. converted back from an income trust into an exploration and production company . penn west now operates under the trade name as penn west exploration . 6 penn west s oil and gas fields are distributed throughout the western canadian sedimentary basin a region which is one of the world s largest petroleum reserves . production comes from three main areas the northern central and plains areas which stretch from northeastern british columbia southeast across central alberta to southern saskatchewan and then along the u.s. border to the border with the province of manitoba . penn west projects a production of 200 000 to 210 000 bbl 32 000 to 33 000 m3 equivalent per day throughout 2008 and claims a reserve lifetime of 10.2 years as of december 31 2006 on the known and probable reserves of 482.8 mbbl 76 760 000 m3 equivalent throughout their holdings . of their output a total of 44 % has been natural gas with oil and ngls accounting for the remaining 56 % . 5 7 in addition penn west maintains a project to recover heavy oil from the peace river oil sands . 8 penn west became a canadian royalty trust canroy in 2005 . in 2011 the federal government phased out this tax advantaged structure and penn west reverted to a corporation . 9 the tax status of canadian trusts changed in 2011 phasing out this tax advantaged structure when jim flaherty was the canadian finance minister . commencing in 2011 trusts would be taxed like all other corporations at the full 31.5 % rate ; this would remove the advantage for which they were set up in the first place . share prices of the trusts dropped immediately after the announcement which was dubbed the halloween massacre . what prompted the move was that the trusts were costing the canadian government upwards of 500 000 000 each year in lost revenue . 10 since the announcement of the canadian tax fairness plan approximately 90 % of canadian royalty trusts canroy s have either converted to corporations merged with other companies or simply liquidated . while the tax fairness plan did not require a conversion to corporate status most companies found it beneficial to do so . after conversion most companies were required to slash their dividend payouts to reflect the new level of taxation they would be required to pay . 11 contents 1 penn west investments 2 canadian royalty trusts canroys 3 accounting irregularities 4 economic contraction in the economy of alberta in 2015 5 references and notes 6 external links penn west investments edit penn west energy trust paid a high dividend yielding an annual rate of between 15 and 16 % in early 2008 ; in addition it paid out monthly a relative rarity for equities listed on the new york stock exchange . since the trust s assets are considered a depletable resource its dividend payments are not taxed at the regular dividend rate but rather as return of capital instead of return on investment . this is an additional tax advantage in the united states and applies to all royalty trusts . 7 12 at the penn west shareholders annual general meeting in may 2015 company executives admitted to accounting irregularities last year . the company said it currently faces six different lawsuits from investors in canada and one consolidated lawsuit in the united states . more recently the company was hit with a lawsuit regarding allegations of stock option manipulation . 13 canadian royalty trusts canroys edit penn west was one of a group of oil and gas producers which also included advantage arc energy baytex energy bonavista energy bonterra canadian oil sands crescent point energy daylight resources enerplus resources enterra fairborne energy freehold royalty nal oil & gas paramount pengrowth peyto energy progress energy provident energy trilogy vermillion energy and zargon energy who did not pay federal income taxes if they distributed their income to shareholders . 3 the resulting double digit dividend yields grabbed dividend investors attention in the mid 2000s . eventually the government cracked down and starting in 2011 trusts were required to pay the same taxes as regular corporations . consequently all trusts converted to corporations and many cut their dividends . harry domash on january 1 2011 penn west converted from a canroy to a conventional corporation . 4 accounting irregularities edit in july 2014 penn west s own newly appointed chief financial officer david dyck had discovered and reported irregularities in the company s accounting practices that misclassified nearly 300 million in expenses . 14 penn west had cut back its work force by almost 50 % from late 2012 to june 2014 . 14 penn west s profit in the second quarter of 2014 was 143 million or 29 cents per share . 14 rick george who was suncor s ceo from 1991 to 2012 served as penn west s ceo from 2013 to 2014 . penn west reported that preliminary findings revealed irregularities totaling 381 million in 2013 and 2012 . penn west notified canadian and u.s. regulators about the irregularities and expanded their own investigation to review results going back to 2007 . lawsuits tied to the accounting irregularities include those in canada and a class action lawsuit in the united states . 15 according to cbc news by the end of july 2014 independent auditors contracted by penn west to review its books uncovered that 70 million worth of operating expenses that were reclassified as capital expenditures on things like property plant and equipment in fiscal 2013 ; 110 million of similar expenses incorrectly classified in fiscal 2012 ; 100 million in operating expenses that were incorrectly reclassified as royalty expense in 2012 and 2013 . 16 the 2012 2013 and 2014 financial statements were audited by kpmg llp . kpmg was replaced by ernst & young llp for the audit of the 2015 financial statements . 17 economic contraction in the economy of alberta in 2015 edit since june 2013 penn west began decreasing it workforce from 2 350 employees to fewer than 1 000 . in response to the recent decline in oil prices on september 2 2015 penn west petroleum ltd. announced cuts of about 400 full time employees and contractors mainly from the company a headquarters in calgary which represents 35 per cent of the total workforce at penn west . 18 penn west also suspended dividend payments to its shareholders after its next payment in october and reduc ed compensation for its board of directors . 18 references and notes edit company listing for penn west exploration pwe . retrieved 2012 09 23 . company profile for penn west energy trst trst units pwe . retrieved 2008 10 09 . a b domash harry 2011 canadian energy exploration & production dividend detective retrieved 23 december 2014 a b penn west petroleum ltd tse pwt google finance 23 december 2014 retrieved 23 december 2014 a b penn west at a glance penn west nd retrieved 23 december 2014 penn west corporate fact sheet penn west 2014 retrieved 23 december 2014 a b full description of penn west at reuters penn west energy trust oil and gas operations heavy oil seal north central area cattaneo claudia 13 august 2011 penn west went east to stoke oil expansion financial post retrieved 23 december 2014 lawyer s weekly article on canadian royalty trusts and the halloween massacre the yield hunter wall street journal information page on pwe kyle bakx 13 may 2015 . lawsuits the latest challenge for penn west calgary based energy company facing litigation on both sides of the border . cbc news . retrieved 2 september 2015 . a b c no impact on our strategic direction penn west to review results dating back to 2007 . canadian press via financial post . 18 september 2014 . retrieved 2 september 2015 . carrie tait jeffrey jones 1 august 2014 . the globe and mail published friday aug. 01 2014 7 2 he penn west saga tom budd rick george and a drama in the making check url value help . the globe and mail . retrieved 2 september 2015 . penn west to restate results after accounting irregularities calgary oil company worth 5 billion will restate 4 years worth of results . cbc news . 30 july 2014 . retrieved 2 september 2015 . http pennwest.mediaroom.com index.php s 27585 & item 135250 a b canadian press 2 september 2015 . penn west petroleum conocophillips canada slash hundreds of jobs most of the 900 job losses between the 2 companies will be from calgary offices . cbc news . retrieved 2 september 2015 . external links edit penn west exploration website calgary portal companies portal retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title penn west exploration & oldid 742099471 categories oil companies of canadacompanies based in calgarynon renewable resource companies established in 20052005 establishments in albertacompanies listed on the new york stock exchangecompanies listed on the toronto stock exchanges & p tsx composite indexaccounting scandalshidden categories pages with url errorspages using infobox company with unsupported parametersvague or ambiguous time from october 2016wikipedia articles needing clarification from october 2016 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutschfran ais edit links this page was last modified on 1 october 2016 at 18 17 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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