It operated in the Cline Shale, which is part of the Spraberry Trend of the Permian Basin, where the company was the largest acreage holder.

[1] Pioneer Natural Resources was created in 1997 by the merger of Parker & Parsley Petroleum Company and MESA Inc., owned by Thomas Boone Pickens.

[2] In May 2016, CEO and chairman Scott D. Sheffield was succeeded by Timothy Dove.

[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] Approval for the transaction from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was accompanied by a consent order alleging that former Pioneer CEO Scott D. Sheffield colluded with OPEC to raise oil prices and making the merger conditional on Sheffield's being barred from joining ExxonMobil's board of directors or serving as an advisor to Exxon after the merger.

[28][29] In January 2024, a class action lawsuit was filed by drivers in three US states accusing Pioneer, along with seven other oil and gas producers, of an illegal price fixing scheme to constrain production of shale oil that led to American drivers paying more for gasoline than they would have in a competitive market.