Two energy giants are leaving for Houston. Here's what's replacing them.
Devon Energy and Expand Energy both announced headquarters moves from Oklahoma City to Houston within a week of each other in early 2026. The same year, Tinker Air Force Base and a fresh NBA championship gave the city a different story to tell.
Benchmarks in this market
- Typical cost-per-lead improvement, local PPC refinement
- +15-30%Typical cost-per-lead improvement, local PPC refinement
- Typical conversion range, local service lead forms
- 2-5%Typical conversion range, local service lead forms
- Typical timeline for local map-pack visibility gains
- 3-6 mo.Typical timeline for local map-pack visibility gains
Illustrative ranges for engagements of this type, not verified Oklahoma City-specific client data. Orientation, not a guarantee. Your starting point changes the range.
How we work here: Remotely from our Lahore office, with CT coverage for calls and travel for kickoffs. We don't claim a Oklahoma City office we don't have.
Clients across every market
What's actually different about the Oklahoma City metro
Oklahoma City is the center of a metro of about 1.03 to 1.05 million people, with close to 700,000 in the city. It's Oklahoma's capital and largest city, and its economy is different from Tulsa's, even though generic 'Oklahoma' content blurs them together.
The energy picture is changing. Devon Energy, an Oklahoma City name for decades, is moving its headquarters to Houston in 2026 after merging with Houston's Coterra Energy. Expand Energy, formerly Chesapeake Energy (which merged with Tulsa-based Southwestern Energy in 2024), announced its own move to Houston within a week of Devon. Most rank-and-file jobs are expected to stay in Oklahoma City. It's the executive and headquarters functions that are moving, which is a very different story from 'the companies are leaving'.
Continental Resources, the shale producer founded by Harold Hamm and taken private in 2022–2024, says it plans to stay. OGE Energy, the public utility, is still based here too. Outside energy, Paycom (HR and payroll software) is a real homegrown headquarters story, along with Hobby Lobby and Sonic Drive-In.
The city's defense identity runs through Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma's largest single-site employer, with about 24,000 to 27,000 military and civilian staff repairing and maintaining Air Force aircraft. That's a different kind of aviation economy from Tulsa's, where American Airlines runs the world's largest commercial aircraft maintenance base with about 5,000 employees.
Mixing up the two cities' aviation work, or crediting Oklahoma City with Tulsa companies like Williams, ONEOK, BOK Financial or QuikTrip, are common mistakes that are easy to check.
Two HQ moves in one week is the real news
Devon Energy and Expand Energy announcing Houston moves within days of each other in early 2026 is a turning point for the city's energy identity, not a minor footnote. Marketers who still describe Oklahoma City as a simple 'energy headquarters hub' are already behind.
Jobs staying doesn't mean nothing changed
Both moves are reported as executive relocations, with most operational jobs staying in Oklahoma City. That nuance matters. Saying energy is dead in OKC is wrong, and so is pretending nothing is changing.
OKC and Tulsa get mixed up, especially on aviation
Tinker Air Force Base's military repair work and American Airlines' maintenance base in Tulsa are both big aviation stories. But they're different kinds of work, for different customers, with different economics. Treating 'Oklahoma has aerospace' as one fact misses what buyers in either sector need to know.
The Thunder gave the city a real moment
The Oklahoma City Thunder won their first NBA championship since moving to the city in 2025, and work started on a new downtown arena in 2026. That gives the city civic momentum that has nothing to do with oil and gas, which is useful context for hospitality, retail and local-service marketing.
What usually moves first in Oklahoma City.
Based on what tends to be the binding constraint for companies in this market. Your audit may point somewhere else. We go where the numbers say.
Industry playbooks relevant in Oklahoma City
Specific playbooks for Oklahoma City businesses
- SEO for Roofing Contractors
- SEO for Healthcare & Medical
- Content for Healthcare & Medical
- Web Development for Healthcare & Medical
- Digital Marketing for Industrial & Manufacturing
- Content for Industrial & Manufacturing
- Web Development for Industrial & Manufacturing
- SEO for Industrial & Manufacturing
- Digital Marketing for Healthcare & Medical
The part clients actually remember.
Not the reports. The uncomfortable conversation that changed the trajectory.
We'd worked with three agencies who all wanted to spend more on ads. Digital Squad was the first to open our P&L and tell us our hero product was losing money. That conversation was uncomfortable and it changed the business.
The repositioning work paid for itself in the first two closed deals. We stopped being the cheap option and started being the obvious one. Our reps say discovery calls feel completely different now.
We spent four months optimizing audiences when the answer was 'make more ads.' Digital Squad didn't just tell us that. They built the system that produces them. We haven't touched an audience setting in months.
Oklahoma City questions, answered straight.
Not exactly. It's consolidating and moving executive functions, not disappearing. Devon Energy and Expand Energy are moving their headquarters to Houston in 2026 while reportedly keeping most operational jobs here, and Continental Resources and OGE Energy remain based in Oklahoma City. The honest picture is a change in what kind of energy presence the city has, not a simple decline.
Let's look at your numbers.
A free 30-minute teardown of your funnel, ads, and site, run against what actually works in the Oklahoma City metro. You keep the findings either way.