JR loses Ewing 6 to Cliff Barnes

Due to Diggers drunken tenancies Jock brought in his brother Jason Ewing to assist the venture. Finally Ewing 1 came in, and what a gusher it was. Jock put the money into other ventures, a worked his butt off to build on their wealth. But the partnership began to crumble as Jason and Digger would continually drink and gamble away the money. But then came Ewing 6. Jock decided to put this well in his name only, as a way of protecting the asset. When this well came in , it was the biggest strike yet. Jock was then confronted by Jason and Digger, he tried to explain why he had done it. But Digger accused him of being a "crook" and tried to murder him. After this Jock decided to go it alone, and let Jason and Digger drink themselves silly. Digger never forgave Jock, the Ewing-Barnes feud was born, and Jason disappeared. Jock went it alone.........Ewing Oil was born.

When JR stockpiled five million barrels of oil in an effort to shut down the Farlow refineries, Cliff approached and convinced the cartel to go in with him and buy up JR's promissory notes to the bank, which held Ewing Oil as collateral. In a deft maneuver, Cliff was in the position of offering J.R a desperately needed ten-day extension on the loan, for which JR had to pay him with Ewing 6, the field that Jock Ewing had stolen from Digger so many years ago. Cliff received the transfer of ownership and christened the field Barnes-Wentworth #1.

After Sue Ellen Ewing obtained a divorce from JR and then broke up with Dusty Farlow, she moved back to Dallas. Cliff saw her again and found that he was still deeply in love with her. He had Afton Cooper in his life as a sure thing, and, though he didn't want to hurt her, he started seeing Sue Ellen again on any terms she granted. He finally told Afton the truth and Afton, very much in love with Cliff, opted to wait and see.

Despite the corporate structure that Rebecca's husband had set up in Wentworth Industries- with an overall, ruling president in the Houston headquarters- in early 1982 Cliff asked for, and received, complete autonomy at Wentworth Tool & Die. His relationship with Sue Ellen was going extremely well, and it was a very happy man that pounced on the deal that fellow cartel member Marilee Stone presented him with: a rich oil field in Lubbock that she and Cliff could buy out from under JR Cliff gleefully plunged into the deal, putting $3,5000,000 of Wentworth Tool & Die cash (which the company comptroller warned Cliff against doing), plus his own savings of $500,000 (from the profits of Barnes-Wentworth #1), while Marilee's company, Stonehurst, put in $2,500,000. Once the acquisition was completed, Cliff drew out another $500,000 from Wentworth to cover the starting up costs for drilling.