Skip to content

M&A Transitions

Overview

Multiple acquisitions and divestitures across 11 years in the same basin. Each one requires a full infrastructure cutover - IT, OT, telecommunications, and SCADA - on compressed timelines that don't care about technical complexity.

Governance Framework

M&A infrastructure work operates under formal agreements that define timelines, responsibilities, and service continuity:

  • TSA (Transition Service Agreement): defines what services the seller continues to provide post-close, for how long, and at what cost. The clock starts at close - every day on TSA is money.
  • PSA (Purchase and Sale Agreement): governs what assets transfer, what stays, and what conditions must be met. Determines scope of the infrastructure cutover.
  • Service Level commitments: production can't stop during transition. SCADA polling, safety systems, and communications must maintain continuity regardless of which entity owns the asset on paper.

The TSA window drives everything. Miss the exit date and the buyer keeps paying the seller for services that should already be self-operated.

What a Transition Involves

Pre-Close

  • Inventory: every asset: network devices, SCADA hosts, radio links, circuits, IP space, DNS, licensing
  • Architecture review: document current state, identify dependencies, flag single points of failure
  • Cutover planning: which systems move, which stay, what needs to be rebuilt from scratch
  • Vendor coordination: circuit transfers, license reassignment, support contract handoffs

Cutover Period

  • Network redesign: new IP addressing, new VLANs, new routing, often new hardware
  • SCADA conversion: migrating RTUs, reconfiguring polling, updating HMI displays, cutting over historians
  • Telecommunications: circuit orders, radio reconfigurations, phone system migration
  • Active Directory / authentication: domain migrations, user account transitions, permission restructuring
  • Parallel operation: old and new systems running simultaneously during transition, with controlled switchover

Post-Close

  • Validation: every wellpad polled, every alarm tested, every link verified
  • Decommissioning: removing old infrastructure, returning leased equipment, closing out circuits
  • Documentation: as-built drawings updated, IP spreadsheets current, SCADA database verified

Completed Transitions

Full field network and SCADA system cutovers executed for the following M&A processes:

Transition Basin
Anadarko to Caerus Uinta
Marathon to Encana Piceance
Encana to Caerus Piceance
BRE (Berry Petroleum) to Caerus Piceance
XTO Energy to Caerus Piceance
Caerus to Koda Piceance
Caerus to QB Energy Piceance

Each transition involved complete network redesign, network flattening, SCADA migration, radio reconfiguration, and parallel operation through cutover. Different operators, different standards, different vendors, different naming conventions, different SCADA platforms - adapting to a new set of requirements while maintaining production continuity every time.

Lessons from Compressed Timelines

  1. Document everything before the transition starts. You won't have time during. The asset inventory you build in the first week determines whether the cutover takes 30 days or 90.

  2. Prioritize production-critical systems. SCADA and safety systems cut over first. Email can wait. The business runs on wellpad data, not PowerPoint.

  3. Plan for the things you can't plan for. Legacy systems that nobody documented. Circuits that were ordered by someone who left three years ago. Radio links that work but nobody knows the configuration. They're always there.

  4. Test the rollback. Every cutover step should have a defined path back to the previous state. If you can't articulate the rollback before you start, you're not ready.

  5. Communicate relentlessly. Field operators, control room staff, management, and IT all need to know what's changing, when, and what to do if something breaks. Surprises during a cutover become incidents.