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Photo by Ted Rhodes/Calgary Herald files

Encana now gets about 80 per cent of its production from U.S. plays and invests a roughly equal portion of its capital spending in them.

Suttles himself has already left Canada, moving to Denver in March of last year. In November he said he envisioned Encana as a “headquarterless” company. Last quarter, he lamented on the company’s earnings conference call that Encana shares hadn’t yet achieved the valuation worthy of a “premium” exploration and development company.

Encana said Thursday the U.S. move will expose it to larger pools of investment including American index funds and passively managed accounts, and better align the company with U.S. peers. Less than 10 per cent of Encana’s stock is owned by passive accounts, less than the 30 per cent average for its U.S. peers, executives said on a conference call Thursday.

Suttles said no job cuts are planned and there won’t be any decrease in Canadian investment.

Encana’s “exciting and engaging” new name isn’t meant to denigrate Canada or its policies and politics, he added, and that the recent federal election, in which the pro-energy Conservative Party failed to unseat Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, wasn’t a factor in the move.

“We don’t want people to see this as some negative reflection on Canada,” Suttles said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg television.

Encana traces its Canadian roots back to the late 1800s, when the Canadian Pacific Railway accidentally discovered natural gas while drilling a water well for workers. The company was eventually spun out from Canadian Pacific and took the name EnCana in 2002. Encana then spun off its oilsands business into Cenovus Energy Inc. in 2009.