Plains Exploration & Production was an American petroleum company based in
Houston, Texas. A spin-off from Plains Resources, Inc., the company was founded in 2002. Its operations, as of 2009, were all in North America, including California, Texas, Louisiana, Wyoming, and offshore of California and in the Gulf of Mexico. The company reported proved reserves of 292 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) at the end of 2008, with a potential total of over 2.2 billion BOE. In 2007, it was the fourth-largest oil producer in California (behind
Chevron Corp.,
Aera Energy, and
Occidental Petroleum). It was acquired by
Freeport-McMoRan in May 2013, at which time the former properties of PXP became part of the FCX Oil & Gas Inc. (FM O&G) division of Freeport-McMoRan.