The devil is in the details, ain't it?
Clearly. The details thus far have the Dene listed as part owners of some drilling rigs. The details of my discovery project list a Norwegian researcher as an investigator. That doesn't make them anything other than an investigator. The contract is for a service. I send my samples, the investigator analyzes them, and reports the results back to me. The proprietorship of the results belong to my company, not the investigator or their employer. If it worked as Petros is suggesting, there would not be entire networks of contract research organizations devoted to servicing pharmaceutical development. Investments would be made to ensure that the revenue generated by the intellectual property isn't unnecessarily given away. I have to believe that the same would be true for the oil and gas sector when it comes to developing their own assets. If I'm wrong, then the oil and gas sector has some of the most incompetent financial managers of any industry.
Now, is there any document to show the Dene as sharing in the revenue created by selling the commodities? Additionally, a document that lays out the legal liabilities for the entire life cycle of the joint venture? In the absence of clear and explicit statements that lay this all out, it's plain foolish to claim that an entity that exists as a drilling service provider in a joint venture or partnership is also an oil company. They could be both of course, but not necessarily.
We don't enter into agreements with service providers to give away assets. I don't see why EnCana would either.